GUARD
by esama
Summary: It was Aerith's job to save the world now. Cloud would quite enjoy watching it from the sidelines. Time travel, AU, slash, oocness, some violence.
1. Prologue

Warnings; Majorly AU, with ooc Cloud, characters' deaths and violence. Eventually slash. Written with only second-hand knowledge about Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core and whatnot, so expect canonical mistakes all over the place.

**GUARD  
**_to keep watch over  
_**Prologue**

Cloud rested his elbows idly on his knees while looking down to the Lost Midgard - or Midgar as it had once been named. He had seen the city through seemingly half a dozen of eyes along the decades, and from equally many different perspectives. It was strange to think back to them now when the city was finally dead without any hope of revival or resurrection, but he still did. There was nothing else left to do, really.

Once he had looked at the city and seen it as a shining future back when he had been just another SOLDIER cadet, pitting his hopes on something that would never deliver. Midgar had seemed so great then, so full of potential and possibilities, gleaming with newness and not yet quite complete and all the more brilliant for it. Such a great future rested on its Plates, great future for him and for all the other people who got the luck of seeing it up close.

And then he had failed at becoming SOLDIER and the city had become dark and distant. It had happened around the same time when the Cloud coverage above the city had became nearly constant, as the Planet had tried to compensate and heal the artificial wound the city had became. The shadows had became black and everything had gleamed and shined before had started to turn dark and rusty. He hadn't been able to stand the place then.

When he had returned, several years and several experiments later, Midgar's time of newness was long past and despite being barely handful of years old, the city was already rustic and rotten. Sun never shined in Midgar back then and the metal the city was made strained under the constant bombardment by the elements. Rotting Pizza, Midgar had been called then, but Cloud had been too confused back then to really understand.

Then the Meteor had cracked the plate and nearly destroyed the city, and Midgar had stopped being Midgar. In the years that had followed, Edge had appeared around the city, while the Plate's had been all been taken down and what had been the Slums had became the actual city. The heart of former Midgar had been abandoned however, unliveable. Nothing grew there, the constructs surrounding the awkward streets at all sides had been worn and crumbling and dangerous. Edge had flourished, however, stretching out of Midgar's former borders and for a while it had looked like it would be like that from there on, a city that had grown out of city, with the old city's skeletal remains still standing in the middle of it.

Eventually Neo-ShinRa had risen, though, with new strength and determination and the rebuilding had begun, the refurbishing. The Mako reactors had been finally dismantled completely, in the great overhaul that had been Midgar's renewal. First deconstruction and demolition - and then rebuilding. It had started with great vigour indeed - and ran out of funds in five years. Some buildings had risen, and great many dangerous ones had been taken down, but Midgar had not became the Neo-Midgar people had been looking forward to.

Ever since then, several attempts at rebuilding the city had came forth and fallen back. Eventually, after nearly forty years of trying to patch the holes in a broken dam, Midgar had been abandoned completely and even Edge had died out, people from it having moved to the new capital at Kalm long ago. Ten years after that, the new name for the abandoned city had became popular, and Lost Midgard had became a place of morbid tourism and pilgrimages, as the people of new era had came and went, paying their homage's and laying down their curses on the tomb stone of the Dark Bygone Era.

But in the end Lost Midgard was still the same as Midgar had been - a wound in the skin of the Planet. Even now, nearly hundred years since the city had been build and the Mako Reactors fired for the first time, it was like a scabbed wound, still festering deep inside, still infected.

Leaning his chin to his knuckles, Cloud eyed the dead city. Unlike many others that he had seen abandoned, Midgar hadn't been taken over by plants. The ground was dead around the city with good fifty mile radius - it would take generations for the Planet to heal enough for anything to truly take root at the city, outside Aerith's influence.

If it ever would. Considering the direction ShinRa III was taking, he rather doubted the Planet would ever get the chance. Atomic energy wasn't as draining as Mako Energy, perhaps, but Cloud had heard too many things about the so called "theoretical" fissure explosion to hold hope for a brighter future. Humanity was what it was - even after all the mistakes and horrifying history books, the concept of "limitless cheap energy" was too juicy for them to pass.

And with his luck he'd still be there to see what it all would lead to.

"How gloomy of you," familiar voice noted from behind him. The blonde man smiled, rubbing the back of his hand over the patch of beard on his chin, but didn't answer. The voice let out a slight huff - part exasperated, part amused. "I thought you would've learned to see the good in people by now."

"For a while, maybe. But these days I'm bigger believer in the number three," Cloud answered.

"Third time's the charm, then?" the voice asked, and chuckled softly.

The man shrugged, and eyed the dead city silently for a while. All the buildings of his youth were gone, only remnants and copies build during the renewal periods stood in their place. Very little of the old Midgard remained, really, and now days the city was copy of a copy of a copy, and so much less than it had been the first time he had seen. And still not even a little better.

"They tried to rebuild Midgar three times," he said thoughtfully. "Three times they had to fail before they gave it up as lost hope. Or four, if you count the original Midgar," he mused, and then glanced over his shoulder at the shimmering figure of a woman he had once known and failed to save. "Humans will do the same with power - though whether they succeed or fail trying in the mean while is anyone's guess."

Aerith smiled sadly before sighing, rocking back and forth on her heels. She shimmered faintly, green glow of the Lifestream ever present. Then, with a little smile, she jumped forward and sat down beside him. "You look good," she said, leaning her chin to her palms and looking at him with wide eyes. "For a hundred and eighteen year old."

"Tell me about it," Cloud answered and snorted. It had been good eighty years since he had aged. Whatever Hojo had done to him in those years long long time ago had been damn effective - even Vincent had succumbed to age eventually, but Cloud had just stopped. "I've been meaning to ask if you'd be willing to give me a hand here. It's getting a bit tiresome. "

"But you're still so pretty! To lay a finger on you, why, I just wouldn't dare," she answered, blinking innocently at him. She broke into a smile, kind and bittersweet at the same time. They both knew that the moment Cloud would ask, life would release its grip on him - and he probably would soon. Marlene's grandchildren were getting old and the new ones barely knew him. There was very little to hold him back.

Cloud smiled back, before looking at Lost Midgard once more. "How long will it take?" he asked, nodding at the metallic city. "Before it will be gone?"

Aerith didn't answer at first, humming softly to herself instead. "Few hundred years before life will return. Thousand years after that, it will be hard to find the place in the forest, unless something happens," she answered. "People will be able to see it from here, maybe. These cliffs have such a nice few."

"Few hundred years," Cloud murmured. "It seems like a long time."

"It's a cinch for the Planet, drop of water in the ocean," Aerith answered. "The Planet will be here million and million years after humanity in all its forms dies. Well… It might, anyway."

Cloud nodded slowly, and gave her a look. She was smiling, swinging her legs back and forth on the edge of the cliff, but she seemed sad. "What is it?" he asked quietly.

The woman glanced at him and smiled a little wider. The man nearly panicked - a lesser woman would've been bawling, with the amount of sorrow there was in her eyes. "Once you pass on, whichever way you will go, the Planet will go to sleep," she answered quietly. "She's so sleepy, but she's been holding on because of you - because she's indebted to you and loves you. But eventually you'll go, and after that she'll sleep."

"Well… doesn't that mean I should go sooner? Stars know the Planet needs rest after all the bullshit she's been through," Cloud answered, a little alarmed.

Aerith smiled, her eyes shimmering with the tears she would never shed. "No, Cloud, it's not good. The last time the Planet slept was soon after the Calamity. Almost all life on this world died, without her constant presence to look after them - the winter lasted for decades, entire species died in the cold. The winter will last even longer this time, maybe for a hundred years. She's so tired, you can't believe how tired."

Cloud blinked and then settled down, frowning. Part of him wondered if it was a good thing - in the last centuries life on the Planet hadn't been really all that good for the Planet herself. And it wasn't like it was the end - even if the entire human race would die, they wouldn't vanish. Life persisted, in the Lifestream - and all scientific studies were cruelly truthful of the fact what would happen if humanity would die. The Planet and all life on it would _flourish_.

But… the look in Aerith's eyes told him it was more than that - and worse. "Aerith, what's wrong?"

"Life is a cycle, Cloud. The creatures on this world live because the Planet lives. And the Planet lives because of all the creatures that live on it, humans, monsters, plants and everything. You take one part of the equation away, and the other will die too," the brown haired, green eyed Ancient smiled painfully. "But the Planet is so tired that she will go to sleep regardless - and if the cold lasts as long as we in the Lifestream think it will, nothing will survive. Not the humanity, not the animals of the fish, and not even the plants. Everything will die."

"And once everything is dead, the Planet will die too," Cloud murmured. "Are you sure?"

"There is a chance, a very small one, that the cold won't last that long and that something will survive. It's not something even we in the Lifestream can calculate - and we're all trying the best we can," she sighed, lowering her head. "Something might survive and the Planet might survive through it. But the chances are… very, very small."

Cloud frowned, turning to face her completely, lifting his hand to her partially transparent shoulder. He didn't know what to say, though - even after a _century_, the Planet was a bit too big for him to completely comprehend. "What if I… never die, then?" he asked, a little uneasy with the concept that he was keeping the Planet awake, that the Planet felt indebted to him. But if that was what it took then he'd live forever if he had to.

"The Planet will hold on for as long she can - she loves you so much, you know. But she's not as strong as she once used to be. The crater, the reactors, so many wounds all over her…" Aerith sighed. "Two hundred years, maybe. Then she will collapse - and sleep."

The blonde man bowed his head slightly, pressing his forehead against hers, sharing the sorrow even though he couldn't quite feel it. It was too big. But he believed her - she had never lied to him, and she never would, not on something like this. "Is there nothing anyone can do?" he asked, wrapping one strong arm around her shoulders.

"There are theories and suggestions - we've known for fifty years now, and we've put our cosmic heads together. Lots and lots of theories," Aerith smiled, nuzzling her nose against his cheek. "But there's no way to fix her as she is now. It's not like we can give her a Lifestream transfusion, you know?"

Cloud chuckled sadly, before turning serious. The look in her eyes - there was something there, a flicker of fire in the depth of green. "There's something you're going to do," he said, realising that inside her sorrow, there was determination. "You have a plan." She was broken, but not hopeless.

She chuckled softly and nodded against him. "Last straw, our feeble lifeline," she admitted. "It might not be enough, it probably won't work, but when the time comes all of us in the Lifestream - the ones of us who agree that we need to save the Planet, in any case - will throw our power together. Last hurrah, if you will."

"To try and heal her?" Cloud asked softly.

"To prevent," she said. "There was a time, a small sliver of a moment, when it all could've turned on its head - and maybe Mako energy would've been _good_, rather than _bad_. It was a while ago, but if we put all our strength to it, maybe that time is still within our reach." The last Ancient smiled sadly. "When the Planet will go to slumber, we will try. It will kill us all to do it, but we will try."

"To reach backwards in time," Cloud murmured, eying her with serious eyes now. All the things he had seen and experienced and heard, this wasn't quite the strangest - but it was perhaps the most desperate. "You'll be going backwards in time?"

"Me and whoever can. I'm the priority because I know what has to be done, but we will try to send others too. The more people, the bigger the chances of success. Rufus is one we'll try to send too. Tseng and Reeve, if we can manage it. Yuffie, maybe," Aerith closed her eyes and sighed. "The Planet knows what we're doing, she's not stopping us so maybe she approves. We were thinking… that is, we were hoping that you might…"

Cloud blinked sharply with surprise before his eyes widened. First time travel, then this? "Me?" he asked, leaning back and putting some distance between their faces. "Me?" he asked again. "What could I do?"

"You saved the Planet. You know a lot," Aerith said, looking at him seriously - and a little desperately. "And maybe, if you try, if we… the Planet might help us. She still has some energy to spare, tiny sliver of it. Maybe, if you were with us… she would help."

The blond man smothered the urge to shiver. The whole thing was so big, enormous. Not just the Planet and its upcoming slumber, but all the souls on the Lifestream and the insane, desperate plan - and that if _he_ joined, then the _Planet_ would help. Because of him? What was he now, really, but a tired soldier of a bygone era, what did he matter?

The Planet had a longer memory than he did, certainly, if it still remembered whatever he had done to earn its adoration.

"It's important," he murmured, not really a question.

"The most important thing left, yes," Aerith answered regardless and gave him a sad smile. "I'll understand if you… if you wont. Living is tiring and you're the oldest man in the world."

"Thanks for that, I had almost forgotten," the blond answered with a sharp look at her, which made her grin regardless of the sadness in her eyes. He snorted and shook his head. "If it works," he started thoughtfully. "If it works, what will you do?"

"All we can," Aerith answered. "We have plans atop plans and we have contingency plans to cover for contingency plans. We've been thinking this a while now." She smiled as he gave her another sharp look. "ShinRa," she said. "ShinRa is our plan. If we can, we will take it and turn it into the empire it tried to be - and we will make it great."

Cloud nodded. With their priorities including people like Rufus, Reeve and Tseng, very important figures within ShinRa and Neo-ShinRa… it was bound to have something to do with the company. He didn't know what role someone like Aerith could play, but considering her it had to be really Planet-damned important. But him? He had never been important - not before it had been already too late.

"We would make use of you, whichever of us would manage to go," Aerith promised. "You're _you_, Cloud. And clouds, you know, they're essential for the life on this world. No ecosystem would survive without rain."

The man chuckled softly, bowing his head and resting his forehead against her shoulder. "I suppose any revolution needs at least one gun hand," he murmured and frowned, wondering if Vincent was going for a moment. He decided not. Vincent wouldn't want to - maybe when he had been younger, but not the one Cloud had known before the man had died. Too many years of regret - too many decades spent repenting.

"You're not a tool," Aerith murmured.

"Being a tool isn't as bad as it sounds, really," Cloud answered with a sigh, and closed his eyes. Past. He could barely remember it anymore - and yet it was so vivid, ringing loud and deep like old ancient bell that had never stopped. And the bell tower was in never ending flames. "How will it work?" he asked.

"We will become our younger selves," Aerith answer. "And live our lives anew. We don't know the exact year - it's hard to - but all of us will be… returned to the same year, same day even. It might be a bit early for you and I," she mused and then coughed softly. "If you go," she added hastily. "I… considering everything I will understand if you won't. Everyone will, of course. The things that happened to you…."

Cloud shook his head, the lapse of her words only making him smile. "It's been… almost a century," he murmured, closing his eyes, oddly calm. Somewhere in the back of his head the old nightmares and shadows flickered, but they were muted by age and more than a lifetime's worth of new experiences. "I've made my peace with those years."

It wasn't like there was any question of whether or not he would go. Even if he had been able to say no to her, it wasn't like he would've been able to let her face those old dark times alone. Regardless of who else was going or what was planned or what would happen… it just wasn't something he could do.

"I might be a bit rusty, though," he warned. He had forgotten places and names and faces - though some events and people still simmered somewhere in the back of his head, flaring with importance and meaning… most of them had faded to black. He couldn't even remember the faces or voices of most of the AVALANCHE anymore, not to mention about things from the times before Nibelheim, Sephiroth and Hojo. "It's been a while."

She let out a laugh which sounded more like a sob, and wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders.

xx

I've been reading some fics lately and I, like a monkey, see and then I do. So, FF7 timetravel. Like I said before, I only have second hand knowledge of the later games of the ff7verse, so I without doubt will make mistakes as far as the new ff7verse canon goes. And I will do them quite gleefully too, I imagine.

Also slash. Will take some time to get there, but yeah, slash. Yep.

My apologies for grammar errors and canonical errors and such.


	2. I, take precautions

Warnings; Majorly AU, with ooc Cloud, characters' deaths and violence. Eventually slash. Written with only second-hand knowledge about Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core and whatnot, so expect canonical mistakes all over the place.

**GUARD  
**_to take precautions in order to avoid some unwanted consequence _**  
I chapter**

When Cloud woke up, he could still feel the warmth and smell the smoke of his own funeral pyre. It was a strange sensation - both having been there to see Marlene's and Denzel's descendants burn his body, along with all the other people he still had vaguely known, and having also sort of felt it. Dead even after leaving their bodies were still connected to it - burning it had been the only way to be truly free from it. It wasn't a bad sensation, to be free. It hadn't even hurt that much.

Drawing a breath, he blinked quickly twice against the sunlight streaming from the window to his face and then turned his face away from it. The room around him made his chest ache with forgotten familiarity, as he slowly turned to his side and just stared at the furniture. Cheaper and stranger than he was used to - in the future the general design of things had changed a little - but still so very familiar. Book case, small table, cabinet and a toy box.

Toy box?

Frowning, the blond man sat up and then eyed his tiny hands. Not quite a man then. Maybe not for another ten, fifteen years, he mused, spreading his small fingers and examining them. He had dirt under his fingernails and he had blisters on his thumb, calloused pads on his palm just below his finger joints. He couldn't remember where he had gotten them, but by the looks of the way they lined, they were from a rod of wood some sort. Hanging bar, or maybe a broom? Maybe a little bit of both - there was a wooden set of monkey bars not far from where he had grown up, wasn't there? And then there was the water tower… there had been a water tower, hadn't there?

"Cloud!" a long forgotten but still achingly familiar voice called. "Wake up! It's time for breakfast!"

The man - boy - stared at the door for a moment, before quickly swinging himself down from his too big bed - and then nearly falling over. His body was smaller, weaker, _shorter_ than he was adjusted to, and getting his stubby feet to work the way he wanted them to took some getting used to. His walk ended up a bit clumsy and more than little haphazard as he stumbled away from his bed and towards the wooden closet in the corner of the room. There was a mirror in the door of it and he wanted to see what he looked like.

There was a strange kid in his reflection. Cloud eyed him for a moment, smothering the urge to laugh. So small! The last time he had seen a kid so tiny so close was when Marlene had had her first boy - Cloud had missed the kid's birth but seen him when he had been about two or three. Did that mean Cloud was now two?

No, he was bigger than that.

Frowning, the man leaned closer, tugging at his face with his fingers, running them through his hair. He was still a little plumb with baby fat, but it was going away fast. Two reasons, he recalled. First, they didn't have that much money in his tiny family so there had never been any abundance of candy and cookies in his childhood. And second… he had always been a runner. And the feel of his legs, as small and useless as they felt proved that he had already figured that one out.

But he was still so small, his hair still so… bright! Had it always been so bright? Smiling with slight disbelief, Cloud tugged at the spiky, straw like dry hair before discovering the surprising length of it in the back of his neck. Turning a little to see over his shoulder through the mirror, he stared. Oh yeah, he used to have long hair back when he was young, hadn't he?

"It worked," he whispered, tugging at his cheek. "I'm… this is… it _worked_."

"Cloud! Blast it, boy, your eggs are getting cold here!"

The blond started a little at that, and then lowered his arms. He looked at the strange little boy in his reflection for a long second, wondering his bright blue eyes - not quite glowing, but _glimmering_, before turning around and stumbling away from the mirror and out of the room.

He almost fell over in the stairs, his feet dragging when he tried to lift them properly, and going too far when he tried to be careful - or didn't move at all. He came down the last steps hugging the railing, having knocked his knee onto the wall and probably bruised. By the looks of it, his mother wasn't happy with the noise he had been making on the way. "Is your foot asleep?" she asked, sighing and resting her hands at her hips while he stared at her, wide eyed.

She was so _pretty_. He had completely forgotten about that. She had long golden hair, spiky here and there and a little wavy at the end, just as untamed as his own probably would be, if he really grew it out. But her face… It wasn't as round or soft as he had suspected - no, she was angles and sharp edges and underlining strength. A worker through and through, he recalled hazily, remembering never seeing her still. Always going and moving and rushing about, making burned breakfast before heading off, always at work, never home. He could see it now, in the rolled up sleeves and the strong line of her arm - she was more muscular than he would be for years and years. And she was so young too. Was she even _twenty_ yet?

"Cloud?" she asked now looking worried. "Cloud, is something wrong?"

The man, boy, couldn't come up with the answer because he was suddenly overcome by a strange notion. He didn't know her name. Strife was, obviously, her last name, but what about the first? What did she do, right now, what was her job? What had she studied, what was she good at? He couldn't remember. All memories he had of her were odd conversations here and there and faded bitterness of her never being home, or _there_ for him.

"Ma?" he asked softly, sounding like the little lost boy he had probably always been, but always tried to deny.

"Oh, Cloud, did you have a nightmare?" she asked, half worried and half exasperated, and came to him. She was all at once easy and awkward as she crouched down and gathered him to her arms. Her strength as she stood up again was surprising, and the way she held him was a little uncomfortable, but Cloud didn't mind. She smelled like fried eggs and bread - and metal and engines and oil. Mechanic?

Was that from where his knowledge on how to tend to motors came from?

"It's okay," she said, rocking him a little as his arms came automatically around her shoulders. She was so awkward - probably about as much as he had been, back when he had found himself taking care of the odd orphan here and there. Why hadn't he remembered that? "It's okay. Let's make you some hot chocolate, okay? You'd like that, right?"

She sounded almost as if she didn't know, and Cloud was both confused and a little mortified by the sniffle that escaped from his lips. She was so much like he had been - and he hadn't remembered that. Young and awkward, a little too strong and little too aloof but trying.

How old had she been when she had had him? He could remember, very vaguely, that Nibelheim had always frowned down at her, but he had never really understood why. Maybe because he hadn't wanted to, because the thought was too awkward for a kid, for a _son_ to get. His mother had had him probably before she had gotten over being a kid herself. Too young and without anyone to help, with the entire town disapproving and then with a baby boy to care for…? No wonder all he remembered was her always working. His poor mother. He hadn't even realised.

"I love you, Ma," he murmured softly to her shoulder, to the rough striped shirt she was wearing. She patted his back awkwardly while making the hot chocolate, and then they sat down together, Cloud in his mother's lap. She handed him the too big mug - obviously trying to distract him from whatever she thought was bothering him - but he didn't mind.

"I need to head off to work soon," his mother said, running her hand through his hair and playing with the longer curls in the back of his neck - and yeah, that was why he had never wanted to cut it, hadn't it? Because the way her fingers twined and curled around his hair there, all gentle and teasing. "So I need you to be a strong boy for me, okay?"

Cloud blinked, looking up to her from his warm, sugary drink. Strong boy for her? Looking down again he frowned, trying to figure out what that was supposed to mean.

"Oh, Cloud," she murmured, reading something from his expressions, and patting his shoulder in attempt to soothe some hurt he didn't even have. "I know, I know. I would take you to the day-care, but we just don't have the money this month. It was so expensive to have the bathroom fixed, remember? When the drain clogged?"

The boy frowned. He couldn't recall that, or ever going to day-care at all, but he recalled something. It had happened pretty often. Something happened along the month and suddenly her pay check wasn't enough to support this or that luxury. No candy at all was one, but there were times he remembered, when all they would eat was cheap tasteless porridge.

"It's okay, Ma," he murmured, taking another sip of the hot chocolate, all the while wondering how old he had been the first time she had left him by himself when she had had to go to work. How old was he now anyway? Four? A bit too young to be left by himself, but he couldn't begrudge her for that, not really.

"That's my good boy," his mother said, smiling faintly and pressing a kiss to his forehead, before pulling his plate closer. "Here, eat up," she said before sliding from under him and leaving him alone on the chair. "There are containers in the fridge with your lunch and there are some sandwiches if you get hungry. Remember to eat, okay?" she asked, before starting to puzzle around the kitchen, hurriedly getting her wallet and keys. "I'll be back around five, but I have my PHS with me, and you know how to call me if something happens."

Cloud nodded slowly - he didn't, but he recalled there being a note atop the telephone, with her number on it. He had called it once, when the power had gone out, he recalled - or tried to anyway, the phone line had been down.

"I'll see if I can get you something sweet from the store on my way back, but no promises," she said smiling as she pulled her jacket on, and leaned down to smack a kiss to his hair. "Be a good boy, okay? Watch some television."

Cloud nodded again, leaning up to her kiss. "Have… have a good day, Ma," he said awkwardly, and she kissed him once more before rushing out of the kitchen and then out of the house.

And then Cloud was alone, looking at the door she had closed as she had left without knowing quite what to think. For a long while he just sat there, with the mug in his hand, not thinking about anything in particular, only sensing things out, feeling things falling to place. After a while, he turned to his - slightly burnt and little messy - breakfast, and begun to eat. It was slightly too salty and the eggs were runny from the middle, but he didn't care.

Later, after washing the dishes and tidying the kitchen a little, he spent hours wandering around the house. He had forgotten a lot about it - stains and holes in this wall, the scratch marks along the living room floor from when a cabinet there had been moved, how badly the couch smelled. There were also the marks he or more likely his mother had made to the kitchen door frame, making how tall he was at this and that point of age. He was, judging by the marks, at least about five years old right now - which surprised him a bit. He seemed so small, but the last age marked on the doorway was five, written by the looks of it by his own hand. He was also already an inch or so taller than the mark made at age of five, so he was probably some months older.

His mother's bedroom he had forgotten entirely, but there was fairly little in it - only a single bed, a table and a wardrobe, and that was it. There was however something very useful in the bottom of that wardrobe - a case holding all the important files and documents they had, including Cloud's own birth certificates and such, things he himself had lost decades ago in his own timeline, back when Nibelheim had burned.

In the records there were the names of his parents. His mother was named Skye Strife. How fitting, the blond thought, leaning back against the closet door and going through what other things he could find. There was his mother's birth certificate and some other important files of hers, school records, bank statements and some old notices from places she had worked in. There was lot of them, the green houses, the post office, the diner, the grocery store, she had even worked at the local hospital as a janitor.

There were also a few photographs - only couple of hers when she had been really young, and few more of him, one of them being picture of him in his mother's arms, probably taken couple hours after he had been born. She didn't look happy to have him there - she looked young and confused, and holding him awkwardly like she was afraid she'd break him.

Cloud smiled sadly at the picture, remembering the kids he had looked after along his years. Most of them had been old enough to know better, but back when Marlene and Denzel had been young… ah, there had probably been that same look on his face too, back then. They had been older, but he had been a borderline SOLDIER. The fear of accidentally _breaking_ them had been constant.

SOLDIER… Cloud closed his eyes and leaned back. He was… five years old, maybe five and half or close to six, he wasn't sure, but he was really Planet-damned young. Ten years from now, in another lifetime, he had gone to become a SOLDIER - and eventually failed at it. What about this time?

What was he supposed to _do_?

For a moment he wished his little family lived in Midgar. Aerith would be there - along with whoever else they had managed to bring along. Aerith, maybe Tseng and Reeve and Rufus. He could imagine them working there, the men from inside ShinRa and Aerith from outside. It would take some time - ShinRa was slow machine to turn, but they'd do it, somehow they'd do it. What role did he have in that? He was hundreds of miles away from Midgar, he was _five_, and it had taken two decades and years of borderline torture to make him _worth_ something. What did he contribute to the plan?

For a while the boy who was a man in his head tapped his fingers against his bent knees, thinking about it. He didn't and never would have Rufus's connections or Tseng's ruthless abilities. He might, with studying, achieve some of Reeve's knowledge, but he had never been that studious. A gun hand - or a sword hand, as it was - was all he had ever been. That, and a weapon maker, mechanic and somewhat good chocobo breeder, but none of those were particularly useful traits in revolution if it was the type of revolution Cloud thought it would be. With Aerith spearheading it, there wouldn't be any blood spilled, after all, so very few weapons would be needed.

And if Tseng was there, Aerith would have all the help she needed to deal with any dirty work that might get in her way.

What use was he, then?

The blond lowered his eyes and frowned. Whatever would happen, there would probably be fighting. That was inevitable, seeing that the SOLDIER program was already running, and that ShinRa had an army. There was also Wutai and the war and everything else, regardless of what effect Yuffie might have, if she was included in their trip back in time. If Yuffie was included, the girl had all his sympathy. He was five, or so, but if he remembered her age right… she'd be a newborn right about now.

He smiled fleetingly and then frowned again. Wutai and SOLDIER aside, there was also Hojo and all other rotten eggs at the company itself. They would fight back all they could, no doubt - and Hojo made things difficult for everyone even when he was agreeing, probably. And even if Aerith's plan would no doubt be as peaceful as possible, there would always be people opposing. There had never been a plan that all of humanity agreed upon, after all.

Regaining his swordsmanship wasn't, therefore, a bad idea, no. But he knew it wouldn't be enough for him to become just a sword user - it was only one edge, after all, and a revolution needed more than that.

Thinking about it for a moment, Cloud mused about the people Aerith had said would maybe be included. Herself, Rufus, Tseng and Reeve - and Yuffie. Which meant that they really intended to take ShinRa from inside out - and according to what she had told him, make Mako a good thing. With the combined efforts of Rufus, Reeve and Tseng, that might be possible, but not easy. Even whilst being a scientist, Reeve was specialist in the matters of environment - he had been the head of Urban Development, after all. If they wanted to change ShinRa, they would have to change the science of ShinRa. The science and… the nature.

If anyone could do something like that, it would be Aerith. But it wouldn't be easy - especially if the people she had wanted with her hadn't managed to come back with them. If Reeve wasn't there or Tseng, or Rufus - or if none of them was there, then… then the chances of success for whatever she was planning dropped down significantly.

Drumming his fingers against his knee, Cloud spent a moment trying to figure out what she might be planning. He had never been able to think like her and in the end gave it up as a meaningless exercise, but considering the people with her… She needed political power, scientific knowledge and expertise, and probably the backing and support of an organisation such as the Turks. And Yuffie was included probably so that the war with Wutai could be handled differently, or prevented entirely…

Cloud couldn't offer her support with any of those tasks - but maybe, just maybe, he could do something to fill the holes in between. He would never be a scientist or a Turk and he would never have political power or connections of being born in the right family but… maybe someone with insight knowledge here and there, working as a sort of in between would be useful. Everyone needed an assistant, after all, and he had the time to work it out - they all probably did, Aerith herself couldn't be older than six right now, after all. In that time, he could do some studying, some training.

He let the thought trail away, blinking as another came to him. His eyes widened, and quickly he jumped to his feet. Rushing to the window of his mother's bedroom, he leaned up to see over the windowsill and to the forest. Over it, he could see the tip of a rooftop. "Shinra mansion," he murmured, remembering. The ghost house of his childhood, the scene of many nightmares, where Sephiroth had gone insane, where Cloud had been transformed into a flawed clone…

And where Hojo had haphazardly stored so many of his important research notes. Not to mention about Vincent Valentine.

Cloud ran his fingers over his mouth and smiled. Maybe he wasn't far away from everything after all.

Knowing it was there and that he could use it was different from actually going there and using it, though. The Shinra mansion was infested with monsters and as he was now he would probably only get himself killed if he even approached the place. Five, weak and unarmed, there was little he could do.

So that would have to be first. Some training, some studying - and a weapon, somehow.

Cloud nodded to himself and left the window, now determined and with a training plan forming in his head. It was a good to have a goal.

x

It was a good thing his mother was away so often, working from eight in the morning until ten in the evening sometimes and leaving young Cloud all by himself. It, though making him realise how sad his childhood had really been, gave him time to do everything he needed to without having to worry about being seen. The entire house became his training grounds, as he relearned his body and then moved forward to transform it into something slightly better with repeated exercises, to build the muscle mass a normal five year old wouldn't have had or needed, but which he wanted as soon as possible.

It wasn't that easy, of course. A kid's body is conditioned to grow, but not quite in the way he was trying to. Most of the food he ate was used to fuel his physical growth, and very little was left to his exercises - and his mother didn't have the extra cash to buy more than the absolute necessary amount of food. It was good that just about all they ate was cheap and greasy junk food - it gave Cloud something to burn in his exercises - but it wasn't _ideal_ by long shot. What improvement he made was no where near what he wanted and it came about slowly and through days of struggle.

But even little progress was still progress. And while his physical training was really in its infancy, his progress with his studies was even less impressive. It wasn't like he could learn when he had no material to study, and what little magazines and books they had around the house were mostly about motors and engines - supporting his mother's attempts at becoming a recognised mechanic around the town. Somewhat interesting, but not very useful - Cloud knew more about motors and engines than all the magazines and books put together. Hell, he knew about engines that wouldn't be invented in a _lifetime_.

If nothing else, there were the newspapers, the television and the radio though. They didn't teach him much, but keeping himself semi informed about the events of the Planet helped. What little news from ShinRa made it to distant Nibelheim was really that, very little, but it gave him some idea about what was going on. So far so good - building of Midgar was proceeding as planned, plans for the revision of the Gongaga Mako Reactor under way, this and that celebrity had caused a scandal with the president, yadda yadda yadda. Business as usual in ole ShinRa.

"So, what did you do with your day today?" his mother asked, watching with somewhat pleased eye as starved Cloud wolfed through the plateful of fries that was their somewhat meagre evening meal. She cast a glance at the fridge. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you haven't eaten anything all day."

"I ran around," Cloud answered, which was the truth. Running around every room of the house once in continuous loop and then repeating the loop seven times, he estimated he ran about half a kilometre. His little body didn't have much stamina yet, so that was all was needed to make his muscles burn.

"Well, as long as you had fun," Skye answered, shaking her head a little and poking at her own food absently. Then she gave him a thoughtful look. "I noticed you were looking at the newspaper when I came in."

Cloud frowned slightly at that, and then glanced up. He had been reading article about some scandal about ShinRa's Investigative Division of General Affairs Department that had put some dark light on ShinRa according to the news paper - there had been a shooting in Midgar, with the Turks involved, or something. "Yeah?" the boy asked after a moment, wondering if he had done something wrong. His mother was fairly loose with the things he did, so as long as he didn't break anything or cause too much noise. Reading a newspaper didn't seem like something bad.

"I didn't know you could read," she said finally, after looking at him seriously for moment, and Cloud frowned.

"Oh," he murmured. Right. He was five years old - and he hadn't learned to read until he was, what, seven? He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, not entirely sure what to say or how cover his slip. Was it possible for kids to learn to read all by themselves? "I'm… sorry?" he finally offered, knowing that he was bad at explaining things - and when ever he did try, he always sounded like he was hiding something. Decades of experience had taught him better than to let his mouth run - it had tendency of running away. Really, really far away.

Skye sighed, leaning her elbows against the edge of the table and looking at him like she didn't even know him. "I hate being away so much," she admitted suddenly. "You keep on growing and getting smarter - and I just keep missing these things," she trailed away, looking at him seriously for a moment. "Do you want to go to school?"

Cloud frowned, looking up to her. She had green eyes - sometimes they looked so much like Aerith's eyes, that it was disorienting. "Um," he said awkwardly, and set his fork down. "I thought that was later?" he asked. "I mean, don't kids go to school when they turn seven?"

Skye shrugged. "Wouldn't hurt to ask," she said thoughtfully. "It would give you something to do while I'm away."

Cloud nodded slowly. It would make things easier on him - giving him the access to the school library, and maybe the village library too, he could visit it after school. And he could go outside - he could _train_ outside, go for real runs. So far he hadn't dared to because, well, he was young and letting a five year old kid run loose, it would've shed some bad light on Skye. She was a bit irresponsible as mothers went, but Cloud hadn't wanted people to see that, and judge her because of it. He could take care of himself, after all.

"Yeah," he said finally, and smiled. "School would be nice."

She nodded and smiled back, before pushing her plate over to him. "Eat up," she said, standing up and getting her PHS - which was the most advanced piece of technology they had around the house. While Cloud tacked the task of finishing her food for her, she browsed through the database. "Ah, found it," she said. "I'll call the school tomorrow, see if we can work something out. It might not work, mind you, but we can try."

Cloud nodded, figuring it was better not to put up any hopes just yet. Nibelheim was… a bit stuffy, when it came to some things, as far as he could remember. Kid rolling into school two years early might not agree with their senses of propriety. "If I can't, can we go to the library sometime?" he asked. "To get some stuff to read?"

Skye frowned slightly, flipping the PHS shut. "I don't know. The library closes off before I get off from work," she mused and folded her arms. "The garage is pretty near by, though. How about you tell me what you might want to read, and I'll see if I can loan it for you during my lunch break?"

Cloud frowned with disappointment, but spent a moment thinking about it. What did he need to learn - and what could he try and learn, without causing any weird looks? A kid of five probably wouldn't want to study Mako sciences, or ShinRa, or anything like that. But… "Magic," he said slowly. It seemed like a safe bet, though he knew more or less all there was to know about Materia, little more wouldn't hurt. "I want books about magic."

"Like story books?" Skye asked thoughtfully.

"No," the boy said, shaking his head. "The real one."

The woman gave him a surprised look and then smiled. "I guess you saw something about it in the TV, huh? Alright. I'll see what I can find, but I gotta warn you. That stuff is kind of secret - people don't exactly write stuff about secret stuff," she warned before starting to gather the empty dishes from the table. "Is there anything else you'd like from the library?"

Cloud shook his head, finishing his food quickly and handing the empty plate over. "I'm good," he said, and stood up. "Do you need help?"

She gave him a startled look before smiling, and together they washed the dishes. As they later made themselves comfortable in the living room, with Cloud nestled against her side as they watched the TV, he wondered if it had been like that before. He couldn't remember - time and Mako had burned so many things from his memory. It was nice though - which made him a little sadder than he had forgotten. If he had been able to remember, some parts of his life might've been easier to handle.

"I love you, Ma," he said again leaning his cheek against her shoulder and closing his eyes. It felt good to say it - and to have someone hear.

"I know, kid. I love you too," she answered, sounding a little baffled but pleased regardless. She wrapped an arm around his shoulder, and for the first time in a long, long while, Cloud felt sheltered. It wasn't a bad feeling at all.

x

The next day Cloud spent training some more and trying to build some strength and stamina, lifting things and doing push ups and squats and whatever other exercises his young body was capable of doing. It was easy to fall into those old, long forgotten patterns of letting his body work while he himself watched the television or listened to the radio - even if those patterns had never really been his in the first place. Zack had been the one who spent half an hour squatting before going to bed and rolled out of bed and into push ups every morning - but there were some things that just lingered, and Cloud had never minded that one.

His knees felt a little wobbly, as did his hands, by the time the evening came and his mother returned from work, with oil splatter on her cheek and a plastic bag tucked under her slightly bruised arm. "Cloud!" she called, cheerful despite the weariness on her eyes. "I have good news for you - and then I have some _great_ news for you!"

She had called the school and though they had been a bit suspicious and confused first about why she would want to enrol her five year old kid, they hadn't been adverse to it. "I think they're just being greedy buggers," she admitted, crouching down before Cloud and unwrapping the books she had loaned from the library. "If you're a genius or something then that's good publicity for the school, you know? Local prodigy, it will make the school look good. Here."

Cloud nodded absently, looking through the books. There were four of them, first being _Brief History of Mako Energy_, which had a picture of glowing green ball in the cover. Magic Materia, Cloud mused, glancing over the other titles. The others were similar, though the fourth one was by the looks of it story book about the first so called magician - a man who had discovered Materia.

"I got a day off from work two days from now - well visit the school together then," Skye said, smiling. "I think they might want to give you a bit of a test, you know, to see if you really can read and all, but I'm sure you'll pass with flying colours."

The blond boy nodded again and looked up to her. She seemed so happy for him that it made him smile too, even though school was just means to an end to him, and way to distract him for her. Giving into impulse, he lowered the books to the floor and wrapped his arms around her neck, smacking a kiss onto her oil stained cheek. "Thank you, Ma," he said.

"You're welcome, kid," she answered, kissing him back before bringing her arms around him and standing up, with him held against her chest. "How about something special tonight?" she asked. "I think we have enough stuff for some pancakes."

He smiled at her, nodding and kissing her cheek again just for good measure.

They made the pancakes, while Skye talked about he day at work and this wreck of a truck that had gotten sawdust everywhere, and she had spent nearly four hours trying to clean it. Cloud listened absently, nodding here and there and happily licking the spatula clean after she was done making the dough. Once the pancakes were done, they settled down in the living room and ate their fill while watching a show about silly home made videos. It was all so blissfully normal, that it almost felt like a dream, and while chewing on his pancake Cloud could for a moment forget how much life could suck at times.

Just for that, coming to the past became more than worth it.

Two days and several hours of exercise later, Skye lifted Cloud on top of the worn seat of her old motorbike, and while he leaned back against her chest and just felt small, they drove to the school. The front of the school was one of the better preserved images of Cloud's holey memory, so the way the school looked like wasn't that big of a surprise for him - the small single floor building with eight windows and broken clock and half ruined playing ground were all the same. But he had forgotten how many kids there were in Nibelheim. In his memory there was always only a handful, but as they drove to the front of the school, there was over forty kids of varying ages running around the yard.

Maybe his class had just been tiny.

"Alright. No chickening out now," Skye said while hanging her goggles onto the handle of the bike, and sliding off the seat. She helped Cloud down too, and while some of the kids on the yard gave them curious looks, they marched to the door.

Cloud had not forgotten the way the Principal could scowl, he found as he and his mother sat down in the man's office, and Principal Heiner asked them questions. He had, however, forgotten the smiling wrinkles in the corners of the man's eyes, and the way the man's laughter bellowed like a cannon blast.

But then again, when Cloud had been student the first time, he had been nothing but a good for nothing trouble maker who always got into fights. Side effect of being the village pariah - which, he realised, he wasn't yet. Maybe frowned down upon for being a bastard and for having such a young mother, but not the recluse he had became after the incident with Tifa.

"Well then, Cloud," Heiner said, coming around the desk and actually crouching down to get to his eye level. "I want to hear what you think. It's a big decision, going to school, you know."

"I thought school was compulsory," Cloud answered, confused.

The man laughed. "Of course, of course! But going two years _early_, well, that isn't," he explained. "That's two years of your life you know, which you could be using to do other stuff. It's a big thing, two years. Even year is a long time."

"Yeah, but if I start two years early, then I finish two years early," Cloud answered. He probably wouldn't - he was going to stick that part of his original timeline and most likely leave Nibelheim the moment he could and go to Midgar, but that was in the future.

"That's a smart way of looking at it. Very efficient," the principal said, nodding with approval and standing up. "Well, I don't mind, to be honest, Miss Strife, one kid more won't make much a difference around here. But there are some measures that have to be taken, this case being a bit special and all. There's a reason why the school starts when it does. And of course, it is spring now in any case, so there isn't much of the school year left before the summer holidays will begin…"

"Yes, of course," Skye answered, shifting in her seat and looking decisively uncomfortable in her slightly stained denim vest. "Um, what kind of measures are we talking about?"

"Nothing that big, I assure you, just paper work and such, stuff we would do even if Cloud was the appropriate age. But seeing that Cloud might be… a bit more advanced than his peers, I would like him to take a small test," the principal answered, pulling out two printed sheets of paper. "They're just simple logic puzzles and mathematic problems and such, nothing too difficult, but I would like Cloud to have a crack at them if you don't mind."

Cloud watched as his mother looked at the two sheets of paper, completely baffled look about her face. "Well, I suppose it couldn't hurt," she murmured and looked at Cloud. "Do you think you could do it, kid?"

"Sure," Cloud answered, and was guided towards a desk in the corner of the room, where he could read through the problems and write his answers in peace. He sat down and then glanced over the test, while his mother and the principal talked some more in hushed tones. After a moment he frowned.

It wasn't a standard school test or exam. It was an IQ test.

Glancing over his shoulder at the principal, Cloud wondered if it was a standard procedure with schools to check for something like this, or if Heiner had came up with the test out of the blue, just working from the assumption that Cloud might be some sort of child genius. Turning back to the test, the blond tapped the side of the paper with his finger, wondering if it had been a mistake to do this, before mentally shrugging his shoulder.

What was the worse thing that could happen? That he would be seen for what he really was? Pretty unlikely.

Taking the pen and testing the sharpness of the graphite, Cloud got to work. It took him little less than twenty minutes to fill out all the answers in his awkward child's penmanship - though he knew how to write well enough, his hand simply wasn't adjusted to it yet. The end result was a bit wobbly but readable, and as far as he could see he had answered the questions as well as he could.

"I'm finished," he said, and stood up to take the test to the principal who accepted it curiously. Cloud and Skye sat in awkward silence, as the man checked over the papers, bringing out a sheet of correct answers and cross referencing.

"Well," he murmured, looking a bit shocked, making Cloud squirm slightly. Had he overdone it? Should've he had downplayed his ability? "Well."

"Well what?" Skye asked eventually, scowling slightly.

"Nothing bad, I assure you. But as far as I can tell, putting Cloud to the first grade would be a mistake," the principal said, looking up and smiling brightly. "That is one very smart boy you have there, Miss Strife. I think we can find him a place in our school in, say, second or third grade."

"What, really?" Skye asked, while Cloud kicked the leg of his chair, feeling like an idiot. He should've downplayed his ability. He really should've.

"Yes, judging by this, I would say so. However, seeing that it is spring time now and there is only a month's worth of school left, how about we use the rest of the school year to… skim over the subjects of the first grade with Cloud?" Heiner asked, smiling at them. "Just to gauge his intelligence and learning speed a little further. Judging by how he does, we will decide his placement in the school next semester."

"Uh…" Skye frowned and looked at Cloud, looking a bit lost. She had obviously not expected that. "What do you think, Cloud?"

"It's something to do," he shrugged and looked at the principal. "Will I start tomorrow? Or today?"

"How about next Monday?" the principal asked, smiling warmly. "It'll give us some time to come up with a schedule for you."

Skye and Cloud shared a look. Whatever she was looking for in his eyes, she seemed to find it because she nodded and smiled to the principal. "Monday then," she said and so it was settled.

Later, once Skye had gotten all the instructions about what paper work she would need to present for Cloud and whatnot, they headed out again. The recess was over and the yard was empty of the kids that had been running around before, as they headed for the motorbike. "A genius, huh. Who would've thought? My little Cloud, a genius," Skye murmured, while lifting Cloud to the seat of the bike, and taking her seat behind him. "This is a start of a new era for us, Cloud. From here on, the Strife family is no longer trash - from here on, we're something special."

Cloud gave her a look. "We always were, Ma," he answered softly, a bit sad that she would take pride from something like this, but also a little happy to give it to her. Even if it was all so far beside the point that the point couldn't even be seen anymore - and even if the concept of him being a _genius_ would probably come back to bite him in the ass… it could've been worse.

"That's right," she agreed, grinning. "Watch out, Planet. Here comes Strife family, and they're special!"

Cloud laughed softly, as she started the bike. "Watch out," he agreed, leaning against her chest and enjoying the feeling of having a proud mother.

There were definitely worse things to have.

xx

Just ground work chapter. I'm writing this whole thing from Cloud's perspective so we will be missing a whole lot of what the other characters are doing in Midgar, but Cloud will eventually catch up with them, so no worries. The pairing(s) of this thing are pretty predictable, especially the main one. Just think of the most common time-travel fixit slash pairings of FF7, that will be it. If you want to be surprised, ignore me.

My apologies for grammar errors and canonical errors and such.


	3. II, against a challenge

Warnings; Majorly AU, with ooc Cloud, characters' deaths and violence. Eventually slash. Written with only second-hand knowledge about Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core and whatnot, so expect canonical mistakes all over the place.

**GUARD  
**_protect against a challenge or attack_**  
II chapter**

Cloud's memories of Nibelheim were greatly dark - either they were about him being alone, him being bullied, the entire town burning or something in-between. The few good things he remembered from the times before were faded and half forgotten conversations with his mother, or some things he had done with Tifa, his clearest memory being the conversation they had had before he had left Nibelheim for Midgar.

It was odd to realise that Nibelheim wasn't as dark as he remembered, the people not as aloof or cold, the kids not as cruel. Of course there was some slight sneering - Nibelheim was old-fashioned place and bastards were not exactly held in high pedestals. But the people weren't intentionally cruel - and when the word spread of Cloud Strife, the child genius, even the sneers stopped.

The paradigm shift between his memories and actual reality was the clearest in the school. When he started there, cheerfully guided by excited teacher to look at this text or these problems and see if he could finish this test in this time, he had honestly except it to have only negative results with the other students. He expected the name calling to start immediately after, expected to be called teacher's pet and such, expected to find himself shoved around and to be forced to exercise some adult's patience to handle the juvenile behaviour of his current peers.

But it didn't happen. In fact, aside from the teachers growing more and more excited as Cloud demonstrated an adult's understanding over simple mathematics, nothing happened for a while. The other kids looked at him from the side when ever he got out of the classrooms or study halls, but that was the only thing they did for a couple of days.

When, on his fourth day at school while he read a history text in the yard, the kids finally approached him, they were only curious. "What's your name?" they started, and when he answered the questions didn't seem to stop. What was he doing, what was he studying, could he tell them something amazing, how much was this plus this minus this when multiplied by this, and so forth. More confused than anything, Cloud tried to answer as well as he could, watching with bewilderment as they oohed and aahed at his supposed superior skills.

"I wish I was a genius too," many of them said wistfully, and without noticing it happening, Cloud found himself surrounded by kids who proclaimed that he was obviously their new best friend.

For someone who had spent his childhood and teenage years almost completely alone, it was singularly strange - and more than little confusing. Cloud found himself looking at the other kids not from the perspective he ought to be looking at them, but from the perspective of a over hundred year old man, who had raised half a dozen kids himself, and seen even more of them grow - it was simply easier. He couldn't relate to kids of "his age" after all, not with his mentality and his history.

Thankfully, if the kids found it strange to have him acting more like an adult than one of them, they made no noise about it - they were either in too much awe of him, or too fascinated. And then there was also the fact that he was just very helpful. More often than not it was, "Help me with this," and, "Study with us," and, "Help me solve this problem," and so forth and thought it maybe wasn't equal exchange and he got nothing out of it, it was pretty easy way of going about interacting with the other kids.

"Did you have fun today?" Skye would ask, when she came from work to find Cloud sitting in the living room, surrounded by homework. "Did you learn a lot?"

"Yeah," he answered, nodding. He learned more abut the other students than the school subjects though, aside from ones he hadn't paid that much attention the last time around. History, physics, and such. Geography he knew better than the teachers did - he had been _everywhere_ on the Planet after all - and mathematics was something that had always been semi easy and semi useful so that was more or less a cinch. His most useful subject was the writing class, though - it let him practice his letters.

But still. He knew more about Leksa's mild learning disability and that Tom didn't have the head for numbers and that Denna needed glasses and that Gerald needed pronunciation classes, than he probably needed to. It was really making him wish the teachers would put him at least on grade three when he would actually start the school, as maybe then he'd learn something that he didn't already know.

"Ma, can I have a library card?" he asked, looking up from the problems he had just finished. Self study was probably the best way to go.

"Sure, if you want one," she promised. "Come on. Let's wash up and start making something to eat."

Though for now the school wasn't proving out to be that useful when it came to information, it was useful in other ways. Like the fact that he could now spend time out doors without people raising eyebrows or wondering what his mother was thinking. It was useful that kids were known to run around and play around monkey bars and climbing frames and such. When he single-mindedly swung his way around the climbing frame until his arms shook with the strain of hanging and lifting himself, no one thought it even least bit of odd. Not even when he went back and forth in the monkey bars, again and again. He was, after all, a kid and _that kid_ to boot.

"Headstrong little thing he is," the teachers often said, and Cloud made a conscious decision to cultivate that reputation as much as he could. If people would just shake their heads and smile indulgently when ever he did something out of character for a kid of his age, it would be easier for him.

With the practice and training he did around the school yard and in the playing ground working as his muscle training, it was time to move onto other, more important things. Strong muscles were only as useful as the thing they were used for, after all. His body needed to relearn the sword, and the sooner he started the better. That was something he could only do indoors, however - knowledge about the sword wasn't that common in Nibelheim, and there was no way for him to spin it to make it seem natural.

So that was something Cloud had to do in secret. It made him once more bless the fact that his mother worked late - that there were several hours between the time he came from school and she came from work, that he could use for that. Getting a practice weapon had been a bit harder, borderline impossible, and for a while he was forced to rely on a stick of wood that he carefully carved so that it would have better balance and semblance to a normal handle.

"Concentrate onto the form," he said to himself over and over, when stick felt off and awkward in his hand, ill-fitting and wrong. "You don't need to learn to be good - you need to be natural. Just teach your body the forms."

And so he did. If anyone had seen it, it probably would've been strange - a little blonde kid dancing around the living room with a rough stick of wood, waving it around awkwardly, slowly. Cloud had a hundred years of sword skills packed into his memory however, from times when he had been a student, when he had been a mercenary and from several times when he had been a teacher. He knew how to transform an unpractised body into fluid tool, and how to make the hand learn the weight of a blade and make it part of the whole. It always looked awkward and silly in the beginning.

Soon he found that the benefits of being so small were actually greater, than the downsides. His body was so untrained at _anything_, so rough around the edges, so young. Which meant that it also lacked all those old ticks and flaws that had taken him _decades_ to get rid of. More than that, the sinews and bones of his body hadn't yet locked into the slight stiffness that haunted him for years - one born from being awkward and gangly teenager and then locked into a tank for several years. Now his back bend in ways it never had, and he couldn't only touch the floor when holding his knees straight, but spreading his legs a little he could touch it with the _top of his head_.

Stretches became important part of his daily routine after he had realised that. This time he wasn't going to suffer that god-awful posture and the incessant back pains that had always haunted him after a battle. This time he would be as limber as he could make himself.

And so, studying and training and stretching and becoming once more familiar with the weight of a weapon in his hand, the spring passed. His trial period at the school came to an end with the teachers planning his schedule for the next year. He would be going to the third grade, it was eventually decided, though special classes would be held if he needed them to catch up. His new _friends_ were thrilled for it - Leksa and Gerald would be in the same grade with him - and they too were planning the next school year excitedly.

"We'll hang around in the summer, right?" Tom asked, the last day at school.

"Sure," Cloud promised. He had already planned to keep on his climbing-frame-and-monkey-bar training, as it was proving out to be effective enough. Having some other kids around him as he did would make it seem more natural.

He and his new friends hung around for a while before separating, after Denna telling them all about the plans her family had, how they'd be visiting the Gold Saucer this summer, spending two weeks there and all. Cloud hid a smile at the thought of Gold Saucer. He had spent good ten _years_ there, working at the chocobo racing. It had been one of the better decades of his life.

He needed to write an autobiography someday.

Thinking of chocobos though made him miss it suddenly. He had spent years wandering around the Planet on chocobo's back, sometimes with company but usually alone. Though it had always been faster and more efficient to go about the world on Fenrir, there had been certain charm on riding a chocobo. With chocobo it wasn't like he had ever been in danger of getting stranded and he could've spent weeks and months in the wilderness without any worry - a chocobo could live on grass while a motorcycle needed Mako. Or gas, with the later engine models when Mako had gone completely and finally out of fashion.

Maybe one day he would take up chocobo breeding again.

"Hey, what are you thinking?" Leksa asked, leaning down to look at Cloud - who was almost a foot's worth shorter than she was, being four years younger.

"Chocobo races," he answered promptly, and then blinked as the other shared a look and shrugged their shoulders knowingly. "What?" he asked, confused.

"Just that they're boring. I'm more excited about the arcade. Gold Saucer has the biggest arcade on the Planet, you know," Denna said, and went off on explaining the many games she had read about from the Golden Saucer brochure she got. Cloud gave the kids a strange look and then shook his head. From the sidelines he supposed the races would be boring - and to kids who didn't spent fortunes betting on them.

They soon separated, the others heading home as he headed for the tiny playing ground near his and Skye's home. While going about the quick stretches and then tackling the monkey bars, he wondered if he would ever get the chance to visit the amusement park in this life. There was so much work to do, though while leading a kid's life he sometimes forgot. ShinRa was still out there, the SOLDIER, Hojo, everything. Sephiroth, for Planet's sake.

While forcing his arms to complete the two pull ups he so far only managed, he wondered what Aerith's plan was considering the silver General. Well, Sephiroth wasn't the general yet - was he even SOLDIER yet? Who knew. Sephiroth was about nine years older than he was, so the man would be… fourteen about now.

Smothering the grin at the thought of fourteen year old Sephiroth, Cloud swung himself forward and went about completing his exercises. After dropping down, he stretched once more, before heading towards the houses, intending to start with his sword exercises immediately, while he was still warmed up and loose.

His plans were changed, however, at the sight of a man in travellers clothing hovering by the front door, looking irritated. "Excuse me?" Cloud asked, stepping forward. The man didn't look like a local, and the patch on his shoulder marked him a long-distance messenger. _ShinRa's_ long distance messenger. "Do you need something, sir?" Cloud asked, feeling a spark of dread.

"Do you know where the people who live here are, kid?" the man asked, pointing a thumb at the house. "I've got a packet here and I need a signature."

"Um. I live here with my Ma, but she's at work right now," Cloud answered, now really worried. Signed letter from ShinRa to his family - that was definitely something that hadn't happened as far as he could remember. "Can I sign the thing?" he offered carefully, wanting to see who the sender was.

The man gave him a look, before bringing out a tubular packet from inside his messenger's back. "Your name, kid?" he asked, taking out a clip board too and glancing over it with a frown.

"Cloud Strife," the boy answered and after a moment of consideration, the messengers took out a pen and handed the clip board to him, telling him where to sign.

Cloud raised his eyebrow at the form. The sender, according to it, was Cait Sith. Reeve had made it back in time then, that was the only explanation. While wondering what the man could be sending him and whether or not it meant that something was already going on in Midgar, Cloud accepted the pen and jotted down his name onto the line.

"Here you go," the messenger said, handing the tubular packet to him. The man nodded stoically, touching his hat. "Have a good day, kid."

"You too, sir," Cloud answered, marvelling how heavy the packet was. Shaking his head, he glanced to see that the messenger was leaving, before quickly unlocking the door and heading inside, beyond curious about the packet possibly contained. Quickly he carried it to his room where he pulled the curtains shut before taking a pen knife and cutting the tape holding the tube's cap shut.

Inside there was a heavy led statue, miniature version of Cait Sith and the Moogle it had ridden on those days long ago when they had been fighting to save the Planet. There was also a small sliver of paper, but what was written on it wasn't very enlightening. "_Happy birthday, kiddo! From your friend, Cait Sith_," it only said, which was beyond unhelpful.

Knowing Reeve, though…

Cloud set the paper down, and turned to the heavy statue. Lead statue. Why lead? Pursing his lips, Cloud turned the thing in his hands. It was heavy for a kid, but not as heavy as it was supposed to be. If it had been solid lead, he would've had some difficulties lifting it. Smile broke to the boy's face, and he turned the statue upside down, to check the bottom. It was perfectly solid, but running his fingers over it, he could feel the slightest indents, edges covered not by lead, but paint that was exact same colour as lead.

Quickly he took the pen knife again, and begun cutting the paint open, to reveal a removable bottom. Prying it open took some time, it was sealed tight and _glued_ and all together it took him nearly ten minutes.

"What the hell did you send me Reeve, to need it hidden this well?" he murmured, after finally managing to pry the angular piece of lead off, to find the statue filled with wool. Pulling it out, he saw a glimmer of light in the depths of the statue, and after tugging at the wool for a moment, he got his fingers around a smooth ball that felt like glass and fire in his fingers.

Materia - three of them in total, all of them green Magic Materia. Staring at them in confusion for a moment, Cloud rolled them in his hands until he could feel the cores and figure out what they did. The first was a Fire Materia - new by the feel of it, there wasn't any growth in it. The second was Seal Materia, it also un-mastered and brand new. The last one was Mystify Materia - just as new as the others.

Fire, Seal and Mystify. It explained the lead, of course - it was a good way to hide the Materia's signature energy from any scanners and such. But why send him these Materia? Aside from the Fire, they weren't particularly useful... not that he could use the Fire one either, at this point. He needed Materia conducting equipment to put them on, too, to be able to use them

Setting the faintly shimmering green balls aside, Cloud dug deeper into the statue, feeling around and pulling all the wool until his fingers encountered smoothness of paper inside. Carefully he pulled the note out, opening it. It was even shorter than the fake birthday note.

"Pr. Hj, ETA 3.6. SH-Mns, 4T acc," was the first line of the message, but the single word on the second one was the one that made Cloud frown. "Natural."

For a long moment Cloud stared at the last line of the message, before looking to the upper one again. This wasn't from Reeve. The statue was, definitely, that was so much like Reeve that you couldn't get any more like him. But not the message. No, it was Tseng through and through - and it wasn't even a message, it was an order, shortened and abbreviated out of shape to make it harder for anyone unintended to understand. Just in case he wasn't who he was or someone else got their hands onto the message.

_Professor Hojo, Estimated Time of Arrival third of June at the Shinra mansion, four Turks accompanying. Make it look natural._

A hit order.

"Well, well," the boy murmured, crumbling the note in his hand and stuffing it to his mouth. After swallowing it, he turned to look at the three Materias. It wasn't the first time he would be working as a hitman - and not the first time he'd be working for Tseng, either. But the man was definitely putting a lot of trust in his abilities, if he thought that from the body of a five year of boy Cloud could handle an insane scientist and _four Turks_ with just three Materias and only one of them attack Materia.

Rolling the three Materia orbs in his small hands, Cloud hummed to himself. Fire, Seal and Mystify - and the restriction of the necessity of making it look natural. With Tseng that was a very open word and could be anything from natural causes such as heart attack to falling off a cliff by accident. The Fire Materia indicated something, and making a burning building falling on someone look like accident would be easy enough… but Shinra mansion was a resource Cloud didn't quite want to loose yet, not very getting the chance to actually tap into it. There was Vincent too.

Placing the orbs carefully onto the table, Cloud looked up and towards the window he had covered with curtains - beyond which the Shinra mansion loomed in the distance. He had two weeks according to Tseng. Two weeks to come up a way to utilise the Materia, and to plan the death of one of the most hated scientific minds of the known world.

He had worked with worse deadlines.

x

It only took a couple of days before he found the window of opportunity needed. Thankfully the school was over and no longer taking his time, so all he needed to do was wait until his mother was busy at work and that none of his friends felt the need to pop in for a surprise visit - and then sneak out of the village undetected, which was easier than he had thought thanks to the fact that the forest started nearly from the back porch of his home.

The way to the dark, abandoned mansion was short enough, and as far as Cloud could tell no one noticed him. Relieved, he approached the front door of the mansion, hesitating slightly. Inside he could hear the growls of monsters, muted and low but present. But it wasn't as bad as he remembered - when, in the future, he and the others had came to Nibelheim in search for Sephiroth and found Vincent, they had barely been able to take a turn without being swarmed by monsters.

But then, that was fifteen years into the future. Shinra mansion hadn't been abandoned for that long yet - so maybe the monster infestation wasn't so bad?

Steeling himself and taking a sturdier hold of his wooden mock up of a sword, Cloud tried to open the door. He honestly expected it to be locked - but it wasn't, only a little stuck thanks to moss growing in the bottom of the frame. Pushing hard, he managed to make the door swing open, making the sound echo like a bang inside the abandoned house. Then, with a deep breath, he stepped forward and closed the door behind him.

Eerie silence had fallen to the mansion.

Blinking, Cloud swung the wooden weapon in his hand and looked around. Everything was more or less how he remembered - scarcely furnished, covered with dust, faded by time. The quiet was as creepy as he remembered too, though it was definitely more thorough than he recalled. There was no scurrying of little feet anyway, no growls, nothing. After what he had heard through the door he had expected something of a welcoming committee but… nothing.

Maybe at this point of time the monsters were still easily enough spooked that they would stay away? He rather doubted it, but for as long as they would he'd cherish it.

Swinging the weapon again and trying not tense with his nerves, Cloud headed forward, listening carefully. After a moment, he headed forward with little more confidence. The quicker he did this, the better. Now, if he remembered right, there were some things scattered around the mansion, abandoned by their owners when the place had been emptied, whenever that had been. Some of things, he recalled, were weapons.

Weapons with Materia slots.

Quickly he peeked into the rooms at the each side of the entrance hall, trying to remember. It had been so long since that he had not only forgotten what he had found where, but also what rooms the place had, what things in those rooms. He barely remembered anything about the lay of the place, but as he wandered around, swinging his wooden weapon and trying to scare any potential monsters enough to keep them from attacking, it started to come to him.

That, and what had happened in the basement.

Swallowing, Cloud shook the old, green tinted memory away and instead went about checking all the boxes he encounter, all the drawers. There were items scattered all over the place - when the place had been abandoned, it had been done with fairly little amount of care, it seemed. But no weapons in the lower floor, not that he could find any, anyway. Frowning, he ventured to the upper floor, checking the rooms there as well and shivered at the ghosts haunting in his memory, that seemed to almost manifest themselves in the dusty beams of light in the old, still rooms.

Until finally he found something useful. It wasn't anything he could use, not really - old machine gun with no bullets in it, and way too heavy for him even to lift it. It was pretty rusty and probably wouldn't have worked even if he had managed to lift it, or find bullets for it. That was beside the point because of one useful feature in the weapon. Materia slots.

Running his hands over the Enemy Launcher and checking to see what would be the best way to utilise it, Cloud wondered. Maybe he could take it apart? All he needed was the slots and metal that conducted the energy of the Materia - he didn't need the gun itself. Pushing it to its side, checked how it had been built, looking for screws and bolts and such, anything to indicate how it could be dismantled. Guns had never been a speciality of his, but he knew his mechanics all right and even a machine gun was in the end a machine.

Wondering if he'd be able to find a wrench or two in the mansion, he nearly missed the soft hiss behind him. Jumping quickly aside, he narrowly avoided being hit by a floating monster, which struck its claws into the table beside the Enemy Launcher instead. Quickly lifting his wooden sword - a baton, really - Cloud prepared to face the small monster, trying to remember what it was, what it did.

As the floating creature turned to him, snarling, Cloud felt an odd sensation of vertigo. It had been _decades_ since any sort of status ailments had been able to affect him, so it took him a moment to realise what it was - and then the confusion magic was already on him. While his body fell under what felt like instant state of intoxication, slumping over slightly, his hand wavering and his poor weapon falling, Cloud felt sudden sting of panic.

His body was _five years old_ and without _any_ protection. No gear, no armour, no spells, nothing. Only cloth and very vulnerable flesh. One hit to the right spot, and he'd _die_, plain and simple.

Unable to stop himself he stumbled, the spinning of the room around him sending him falling to his knees. As they impacted heavily against the wooden floor, he almost laughed - would've laughed, if his tongue hadn't gone numb. And Tseng thought _he_ was enough to kill Hojo, as he was! Ridiculous. He couldn't even _stand_ and it was only the equivalent of a confuse spell on him!

The monster wobbled in the air, thrilling strangely and made to float towards him, its weird claws outstretched, intending to strike. Cloud watched, now feeling odd, juvenile urge to giggle. It was so funny. He was hundred and eighteen years old, bested by a tiny little thing like this! The monster looked ridiculous anyway, like a floating pumpkin with claws. What made monsters like that? Where was the mad scientist who thought that a floating pumpkin with claws was a good idea?

To be killed by a floating pumpkin… who could say they had done that?

Cloud snorted and then realised that he was sitting almost completely still, the wooden mock-up of a sword lying on the floor beside him. Helpless, defenceless and not even trying to do anything. Part of him thought it was stupid to even try - easiest just to sit here and let it go away, it was too funny to stand. Sit here and let it go away; let the spinning of the world stop, before he laughed himself to death.

_No._

That was only the Confusion magic talking. He didn't want to die, he had things to do and he would _not_ die here. Grunting softly, Cloud forced his slightly resisting hand grip tighter on his makeshift weapon. The world lurched and he nearly fell over as he desperately took a swing at the attacking monster, missing by several inches, but sending the creature back a bit. The next swing the boy took was even wilder and more desperate - but it hit the monsters claw, making it spin awkwardly in the air.

The world seemed to twist terribly around Cloud and the swing he had taken seemed to fly away into eternity, dragging his arm after it. It wasn't, of course, but the spell was making him so high that for a moment he thought he could see the universe somewhere at the end of the wooden rod. He giggled once more, staring after it wide-eyed. He really wanted to just let go and just stare his fill, but while his body was weak his mind had suffered through too much to give up, even with the confuse spell trying to assure him that it was alright.

Bringing the weapon back seemed to happen in slow motion, but as he did the last swing had the luck of devil. The monster lurched just forward, intending to attack again when the returning mock-up sword hit it to the side. The wild swing had surprising amount of strength considering how small Cloud's body was, and there was a crunching sound as some weak bone in the monster's strange body crumbled under the impact.

As the little pumpkin headed creature fell, groaning in strange inhuman tones and bleeding from the mouth, the confusion started to wade away. The world grew still once more and Cloud remembered how boring the colour scheme at Shinra mansion was - under the spell everything had looked… fairly psychedelic. He shook his head roughly, trying to clear it completely. It had been decades and decades since anything had managed to put him under like that. He had completely forgotten what it was like.

Quickly he stumbled back to his feet, now breathing surprisingly hard. His hand shook, not due to the spell or anything but with the impact of the last swing. Grimacing he rubbed his wrist which was now aching before looking down to the creature that had attacked him. Whatever it was, it was dying by the looks of how it was bleeding. It was whining strangely, and with a wince Cloud took a pity on it, and crouched down before slamming the hilt of his make shift sword into it as hard as he could, taking it out of it's misery.

"Sorry, little guy. You picked the wrong prey," he murmured and used the sword to push the now limp creature away - before something in the corner of his eye alerted him. Spinning around hurriedly, he saw that he had company - a whole lot more company than before.

The floating creatures snarled and hissed at him strangely, all six of them jerking and lurching in the air, clicking their strange claws. Cloud stared at them wide eyed for a split of a moment, before making a mad dash away, knowing full well that if he barely managed to take down one, then six at once was _way_ out of his league. His escape was cut short as he realised that there was only one door to the room, and it was covered by the creatures.

"Shit," he grumbled, and just managed to glance at the window enough to figure out that jumping would be a _bad idea_, before the monsters attacked, some of them aiming for their downed fellow and some of them wobbling towards him. He spun around and lifted his weapon in desperate attempt of defence, as he felt the tendrils of the confusion magic reaching for him - now coming seemingly at all sides, and so much more powerful than before. These things, whatever they were, obviously knew how to hunt in groups; they were _all_ sending the magic at it, trying to overwhelm his senses. And they were succeeding too.

The world seemed to fade into blur of light and colours, and Cloud new that the room wasn't spinning - _he_ was, unable to even see straight or comprehend what little he was seeing. There was a sudden pain across his chest and he only barely understood that he had probably struck himself there in his confusion. The thought faded away as he felt something gripping his shoulder - before pain tore its way through his muddled mind and he realised that one of the creatures had just dug its claws into him.

The concept of dying wasn't just alluring whisper of the confusion spell this time. Cloud couldn't even lift his hand enough to try to pry the creature off; he wasn't even sure which shoulder it was on. Then there was another sting of pain, this somewhere in his chest or maybe in his stomach, and the nauseating thought that something was clawing the vulnerable skin of his belly nearly made him throw up.

He was going to die. No, he was going to be _eaten alive_.

He maybe fell onto his knees or ran into something - or maybe the creatures had lifted him up somehow and had slammed him into something, he wasn't entirely sure. His knees hurt all of sudden, and there was a twisting sensation in his stomach, something digging in. The cool, spine twisting sensation of being wounded, bitten, and unable to do anything to stop it was overwhelming for a moment and he might've shuddered with horror. He was so helpless; he couldn't even remember when he had been this helpless.

Oh, Planet, he was going to _die_.

Squeezing his eyes shut and trying not to cry out, Cloud for one deranged moment desperately wished for his old, reliable sword the way a child would wish for his favourite teddy bear.

There was a shimmer of green somewhere in the back of his eyes, and so suddenly that he almost missed it… he felt fine again, no longer intoxicated. Not only that, but he felt _great_, like someone had thrown a Cure and Esuna and Haste on him all at once - like he was _himself_ again. His eyes started working again with the suddenness of veil being ripped off, and the floor felt steady under him again.

And there was a creature on his stomach, tangled in his shirt, trying to claw its way through it.

As his fingers gripped the handle of… of something, it wasn't the wooden sword, it took a moment for his mind to figure out what was happening, and then he was already swinging it forward with powerful ease. The hilt of whatever he was holding slammed into the creature, and it was thrown away and to wall by the power of the hit, a cracking sound indicating that whatever bones it had had been crushed by the impact, and for a while Cloud could only stare at the bleeding creature with confusion. Then the one on his shoulder called his attention by digging its claws deeper, and he ripped it off with his bare hand, slamming it to the floor, killing it with terrifying ease.

Staring at his hand and the creature it had just _swatted_ so easily, he realised that his fingers were longer, his hand was bigger. No, _he_ was bigger.

Looking down to himself, he saw that he really was. Not only was he bigger - taller and stronger and generally very, very different from the little boy he had just gotten used to being - but he was also wearing different clothing. Gone was the sky blue jumper and the shorts he had been wearing, even his foot wear was different. His blood stained fingers shook a little as he ran them over the dark blue vest, the straps of his sheath, the heavy cargo pants. These were the clothes he had worn before he had died - even the Ribbon was there, faded pink by time, just like it had been. Lifting his hand and exploring his face and hair, he also found the differences there. The patch of fur on his chin was back. His hair shorter, wilder, rougher. His face sharper, stronger.

This was him, as he had been in the future.

He barely managed to finish realising that, before there was a snarl, and something attacked. The reaction to the threat was automatic, and Cloud swung up, and then left and then all around in flurry of familiar motion, the weight in his hand comfortable and insistent, guiding him as much as he guided it. In handful of seconds, the battle if it could even be called that, was over and all the attacking creatures were dead - several of them sliced to pieces by his counter attacks.

"This is -" Cloud started and then closed his mouth with a click, staring at the weapon he was holding. It was his fusion sword in its full assembly, enormous and heartbreakingly familiar. Which was… impossible, wasn't it? Confused, he ran his hand over the now blood stained blade. The familiar magic glow was there; emitting from the very metal the sword was made from - the metal which was not metal. But… the sword, it was a thing of the future…

As were his clothes for that matter. And himself.

"What the hell?" he murmured, letting the blade fall down and looking at himself again. His voice was different and curiously he lifted his free hand to touch his throat - his Adam's apple had returned, bringing his deeper voice with it.

He had… transformed. Into _himself_.

Aerith hadn't told him anything about _this_.

Lowering his hand and for a long while without the faintest idea what to think, he stood there. Then he looked down to himself again, just to be sure he hadn't somehow mis-seen. No, here he was, seemingly thirty years old male, as he had been before he had died, wearing clothing he had worn then, holding a blade that couldn't _exist_.

As the shock slowly passed, the questions took its place.

Why had it happened? Because he had been in danger? And how? Was it a physical transformation like the ones Vincent had gone through, or the sort of physical illusions he had seen the Kadaj going through when Sephiroth had taken over? Could he turn back? Probably best he didn't right now, considering where he was being the warrior had been would be more useful and safer than being a five year old boy. But if he _couldn't_, then…

He hesitated for a moment before steeling himself. Stranger things had happened to him - going back in time, for one. He needed to pull himself together. He had sudden advantage over the monsters of Shinra mansion and for as long he had it, he would make use of it. Swinging the familiar weight of the fusion sword again and taking it behind him and to the holster specially designed for it, he straightened his back. There was rest of the mansion to explore and wrench or two to find - and maybe now, that he was in this form, he could venture down to the basement, and see Vincent.

What he would say to the man, he had no idea, but now he had more reason than just to explain some things to the man. Vincent was, regardless of how much he no doubt hated it, a specialist of transformations. However this had came about Cloud, Vincent might have some insights to it.

Quickly picking up the rusty Enemy Launcher, marvelling how light it felt now, Cloud turned and left the room to continue his exploring, now much more confident than before.

Now that he had little to fear from the mansion, exploration took only a little while, and he did find the wrenches he was looking for. Taking apart the machine gun took a little longer, it was rusted almost completely shut despite the fact that Materia conducting alloys tended to be pretty durable. Eventually he managed to pull the Materia slots off the rest of the weapon and inspect them. They were in form of slightly u-shaped plate and he could immediately tell that any form of tempering would ruin the plate completely. He would need to do something else with it.

The shape was a bit awkward, but if he fixing it into a belt or leather shoulder guard, something that had a bent… Thoughtfully he tested it weight, wondering how heavy it would be to his child self. Belt was maybe the best idea, as a kid he would have easiest time to carry it that way, and it would probably fit somewhat snugly to the side of his waist. It would be easy to hide that way, too, under his shirt.

That would have to wait until later - he didn't have the materials now, after all.

Tying the plate with the Materia slots to a strap at his belt, Cloud made his way to the second floor once more, aiming for the safe there. It was best he dealt with the booby traps there now that he had an edge. If he was lucky, what he remembered would be right too and he'd also find a summon Materia from the safe, as well as the booby traps and the way to the basement.

"Can't say if Shinra has good or bad security," he murmured, using the heavy sword to slice the safe open without even bothering to try and fight with the combination lock. As the monster hidden inside growled and rushed forward, Cloud lifted the enormous blade, and prepared to fight.

It was almost amusing how quickly it was over, considering that if he had been in the child form, the monster would've instantly killed him. All it took was couple of precise swipes and single thrust through the monsters neck. Like that the battle was done, leaving Cloud with a sword that seriously needed some cleaning, and with what looked like one of Hojo's old experiments, lying dead on the floor.

Sighing, Cloud shook the fusion sword to get most of the blood off, before crouching down to inspect the monster. He wondered for a moment whether or not it had once been human or something else, before letting the thought slide. It didn't matter - he had probably done the beast a favour, releasing it from the containment spell and putting it out what had to be a pretty miserable existence.

Pushing the beast aside, knowing that the monsters of the mansion would take care of the body soon enough, he turned to the safe itself. There were some old files there, as well as a wooden box. He ignored the files and the box, reaching instead to the back of the safe and hitting a hidden switch there. As he withdrew his hand, snatching the wooden box as he did, there was a mechanical sound in the side of the house.

Standing up again, Cloud left the safe and the monster that had been guarding it, and made his way across the stairs and the second floor landing before heading to the north wing, where the doorway to the stairs leading to the basement was opened. While making his way down the stone stair case, Cloud opened the wooden box he had found from the safe, taking out a red ball of Summon Materia.

"Huh," he murmured, holding it in his fist, and feeling the power inside flare. With little mental prodding, he could feel sentience inside. It was a Summon Materia for Odin. "So this is where I got it. I had forgotten about that," he murmured. Why had anyone willingly left it behind, he had no idea - Odin was a powerful summon, not something you just ditched. After a moment of thought he shook his head and placed the ball of Materia to the plate he had taken off the machine gun. Despite the rust at the edges of the plate, the ball clicked snugly to place, making the metal around it warm.

Then he was in the basement, his skin crawling with the old memories. Taking the fusion sword and holding it tightly in his hand, he headed forward, not entirely sure what he was going to do, but figuring he could at least let Vincent know that he was there - and that he'd probably be a regular visitor from here on.

Especially so, if the transformation to his elder self proved to be permanent.

xx

And the deux ex machina of today shall be a magical girl transformation, played out by Cloud Strife. x3 I am experimenting a lot of this story, pulling random ideas from thin air and not all of them are that good, but I'm running with them to the end of the world anyway. Yep. I am also completely mucking up the time line.

As of now it looks like this story will have about twenty chapters, but who knows, it might end up being shorter or longer depending how it goes. The slash won't probably even be hinted before the tenth or so chapter - there's lot to do before that, and the focus of this story is Cloud watching how Aerith saves the world, rather than any larger than life romances.

My apologies for grammar errors and canonical errors and such.


	4. III, charged with

Warnings; Majorly AU, with ooc Cloud, characters' deaths and violence. Eventually slash. Written with only second-hand knowledge about Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core and whatnot, so expect canonical mistakes all over the place.

**GUARD  
**_a body of people charged with guarding a place from disturbance  
_**III chapter**

Vincent was among all the people Cloud had ever known the one he had had easiest time understanding, aside from Sephiroth. It was a slightly strange notion, even after all the years, considering how short spoken and distant the man had seemed to most people. But somehow it had always been easy for Cloud to distinct the nuances in the man's speech - the volumes worth of information Vincent could put into a single sentence. With the former Turk, Cloud had been able to talk in half sentences - and say more than he had ever been able to with anyone else.

There was also the fact that normal people had been beyond his understanding for a long while after the horrible years under Hojo's care. Too confused, too mixed up mentally, he simply hadn't been able to relate to almost anyone. Vincent, though… Vincent had been similar enough to empathise with. They had similar horrors in their past, similar nightmares. It had helped. It helped now, too, in more ways than one. The last time he had woken Vincent up, he hadn't had that understanding - back when he had still been too entwined in Zack's personality. Now he wasn't - now he understood.

That, and the fact that Cloud's transformation faded in middle of their awkward and short spoken greetings, helped in convincing the man from going back to sleep as soon as Cloud had finished waking him up.

"I guess there is a time limit for that," Cloud murmured afterwards, staring at his empty hand from which his heavy fusion sword had simply faded away, leaving him feeling unbalanced. "Huh," he said and then passed out.

He woke up some minutes, or maybe hours, later in the laboratory, with Vincent leaning over him and tending to his wounds Hissing, Cloud glanced down to the shoulder the man was swiping with a moist cotton ball. Apparently the transformation had done next to nothing to the wounds he had gotten from the pathetic attempt of fighting the monsters of Shinra mansion, but it seemed like that for the most part they had stopped bleeding. Whether that was because of the transformation or the time, he didn't know.

He grimaced slightly, touching his belly as pain tore through his consciousness. Vincent had bandaged it already; apparently the wound had been just as serious as it had felt. But for now it didn't at least seem like his guts were spilling out, or like he was about to die from blood loss, so that was good. "Ow," he said feebly, slumping back against the armchair he was seated in. "How - how long was I -?

"Half an hour or so," Vincent answered without looking up from his work. "Does that always happen?"

"No idea. First time transforming," Cloud sighed, closing his eyes and then wincing at the sting of the disinfectant. "I guess I ought to count myself lucky to collapse near a laboratory," he murmured, glancing down again.

Vincent eyed his small form silently for a while, unreadable look about his face. Then he put the cotton ball away and reached instead for jar of some sort of salve. "You will explain everything to me again," he said, and it wasn't exactly a suggestion.

"Sure, why not," Cloud answered, glancing around and wondering where the plate with the Materia slots had gone to. He soon found it sitting atop pile of fabric that had been a shirt sometime before. His mother would flip of she saw it, but at that moment Cloud didn't really care. Instead he looked around the laboratory, feeling a little ill. "This place," he murmured and shook his head. "Planet, how I hate this place."

Being in the basement as a child was a little harder than being there as an adult - the place was cold, it smelled of acid and Mako, and his skin seemed too vulnerable now, without hundred years worth of experience and training toughening it. Everything seemed to echo with bad memories and for a moment he even thought he could see Sephiroth on the corridor leading to the study, asking him if he'd join theReunion. As Cloud looked closer, though, the mirage was gone.

Vincent, if he noticed, said nothing, only concentrated onto tending to Cloud's shoulder, spreading the salve over the stinging wounds. Once he was satisfied, he took bandages and begun wrapping the boy's shoulder with efficiency and care that was a bit surprising, considering the sharp claws of his left hand's gauntlet. Cloud said nothing though, only sighed with relief once the bandaging was done

"Now, everything," the red eyed man said. "From the beginning."

"Yeah. Just, it's been a while since most of that stuff happened to me, I might've forgotten some things. So, sorry about that," Cloud said, running slightly shaky fingers over the bandages. Then he started from beginning - or as far as he knew it, anyway. Most of the stuff he told Vincent probably already knew, Jenova's discovery, the studies Gast and Hojo had done, the experimentation with Lucrecia's unborn child and Sephiroth's birth. What followed though, Cloud was pretty sure Vincent didn't know.

"I don't know what Hojo intended for him, in the end, but I guess President Shinra wanted some money worthy results out of the experimentation. Sephiroth was eventually taken into the SOLDIER program. Some years from now, he will become the General of ShinRa's armies," Cloud continued. "I'm not entirely sure if the war with Wutai will happen before or after that, or somewhere along way, but it will make Sephiroth famous. Ten years of now there won't be a person on the Planet who doesn't know his name."

He trailed away, thinking about it, trying to remember what happened at what point of his life. How old had he been when Sephiroth had gone insane? Sixteen? "Eventually, Sephiroth will be sent here with another SOLDIER and couple of infantry men. There will be monster problem and they'll be asked to deal with it," he continued. "I think it was a set up - sending a General to deal with monster infestation never seemed logical to me, but anyway… He will find this place. Read through the reports here, find out what was done to him, what he is."

Vincent eyed him silently as he trailed away again, thinking back to it. Zack's memories of the incident overlapped his own there - he could remember confronting Sephiroth in the basement, except as _Cloud_ he had never found it, not until several years later. It had been Zack, then, who had done the confronting. "He will go insane, vengeful. He'll burn Nibelheim to the ground, kill almost everyone there…"

The events that had taken place at the reactor were harder to go through, but Cloud did, from confrontations to fighting to being skewered by Masamune and to throwing Sephiroth to the reactor. "Another reason to think why it was a set up - Hojo got here before me and Zack had even stopped bleeding," he murmured with a dry chuckle, and glanced down to his now carefully bandaged stomach. "Thanks."

Vincent nodded, shifting back to crouch in the floor. "And then?"

"Sephiroth, as far as I know, either died or went into a stasis of some kind. For me it was five years of experimentation, a bout of insanity, one hell of Mako poisoning," Cloud answered, shaking his head, before going on. The rest of the story was easier to tell - he remembered more of it. Zack breaking them out, them making their way to Midgar, Zack's death, Cloud's accidental takeover of Zack's personality, and the chase of AVALANCHE and ShinRa and Sephiroth's sudden resurrection and hunting him literally to the ends of the earth. Aerith, the Meteor and Holy were a bit more difficult to explain, he still after all the time didn't quite know what to think about it. After that, the story was easier, though. Geostigma, the remnants, Sephiroth coming and then going again, and all the years that followed.

"You died at age of ninety seven, in the end. Outwardly you didn't age at all, but on the inside… well, Hojo wasn't as experienced when he made you, so there were some flaws here and there, I guess," Cloud shrugged. "I lived longer - until Aerith finally told me about how tired the Planet was."

"And you came back in time," Vincent nodded with a frown. "The man you were before you… turned into a child, that was who you were in the future?"

The boy nodded and leaned back, rubbing his stomach gingerly. "I'm pretty sure that Tseng and Reeve are here too - otherwise it would be pretty weird for them to send me a hit order," he said. "I'm not sure about Aerith, but if they're here and I'm here, it's pretty safe bet she's too." At the man's confused look, Cloud grinned. "Tseng will be the chief of the Turks one day. Reeve is the head of Urban Development at ShinRa. They were… allies. Friends even."

"And they sent you a hit order," the red eyed man murmured and gave him a look. "For me?"

Cloud snorted and shook his head. "For Hojo," he answered. "He'll be here in two weeks with four Turks. I'm to kill him and make it look natural."

Now he had the man's full attention. Cloud blinked with surprise and almost smiled at the fire burning in Vincent's eyes. Vincent had always been man of mixed feelings, but there was nothing ambiguous about the man's hate for Hojo. "Do you think you can?" Vincent asked.

"I have a bit of a plan, yeah. And if I can transform back to the bigger version of myself, it shouldn't be too hard," Cloud agreed, fingering the metal plate with Odin's Summon Materia. He wouldn't be needing it, but Tseng had been pretty smart about what Materia to send him - and maybe writing the ETA being at Shinra mansion hadn't been there just for guidance. "I could use a hand, though. With couple of things," he admitted. "Unless you're in a hurry to go to sleep."

Vincent's eyes narrowed slightly. "Unlikely, if Hojo is coming," he said shortly. "What do you need?"

"Help figuring out how the transformation thing works - and a whole lot of blood," Cloud answered, and smiled.

x

The hardest thing about being injured wasn't the actual injury, amusingly enough. Cloud had been wounded worse and though his body was very unused to pain, it wasn't hard for him to handle. No, the difficult part was hiding it from his mother and his friends - especially since Cloud had, rather unintentionally, made himself into a figure who touched others often. It had started with his mother and spread to his friends and now people reacted to him the same way he unknowingly did to them.

His mother, though awkward in the beginning, now often pulled him to her lap or side, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders and ruffled his hair easily and almost casually. And his friends patted his shoulders and slung their arms around him, pulling him by his hands and tugging him this way and that. Trying not to wince or tense or let even the slightest sigh of pain out when they did wasn't impossible, but it definitely took some conscious effort. It was a blessing that his mother had apparently taught him to take care of his hygienic needs by himself a while ago, because if she had still been helping him while he bathed, he would've never been able to hide the wounds.

"You'll have some scars," Vincent noted with monotone, the third day after his awakening, while changing Cloud's bandages in the front hall of the Shinra mansion - where he now met the boy, who couldn't venture too deeply into the place by himself.

"Yeah. Hopefully by the time I have them, no one will even think of asking about where I got them." Cloud mused, and winced as Vincent disinfected one of the slightly festering wounds. "I'd give anything for a Cure Materia right about now," he grunted.

Vincent hummed softly in answer, and took out the bandages which he had apparently washed for the boy. "Sit still," he said, and while Cloud did his best not to squirm, the man bandaged the cuts along his chest and stomach.

Once it was done, they went back to what they had been doing since they had come into a sort of accord about what to do. As far as Hojo came, there was nothing they could do but wait - there were very little preparations to be made, and Vincent had better chances at taking care of those, as he could handle the mansion better. So, they concentrated mostly onto Cloud's transformation ability, and trying to duplicate his accidental success.

"You transformed under duress. It could mean that the ability is either linked to your desires, your adrenaline production - or that it has became your Limit Break," Vincent mused, after several tries which all had proved out to be unhelpful. "In that sense it would be very much like my own transformations…"

"Yeah. The longest limit break I've ever had was about twenty seconds, though. The transformation lasted something like half an hour," Cloud agreed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He missed the feel of having a bit of beard there - maybe one day. "If I need to be in danger, though… Well, that's not something I'd like to go out testing, as I'm now. Especially not if I will always pass out afterwards." Though he really, really hoped that had been more because of the wounds than because the transformation itself

"I imagine not," Vincent answered dryly and crouched down, tapping the wooden floor with the tips of his metal covered fingers. "My transformations last for as long as they are needed, once they are triggered," he mused. "And they are linked to my Limit Break, so there are similarities there."

Cloud nodded thoughtfully. It had been barely a battle though, no where near enough to trigger a Limit Break. Limit Break was, as far as he understood it anyway, bottled up anxiety and bent up energy that couldn't be released normally. It piled up inside a person and usually it took several battles for people to cumulate enough of that to Break. In this body, in the body of a five year old, he hadn't had enough struggles for that.

"Your transformations… they're effect of being physically experimented upon. I don't have that. And what's more, if that would be it, why did the sword appear? Why did my clothes change?" he murmured. "I'm not entirely sure if it was a transformation at all, but a physical illusion - a manifestation."

"Like the one… Kadaj went through, transforming into Sephiroth?" Vincent asked.

"Yeah," the blond boy nodded. "Maybe, anyway. I don't know. But it would make odd sort of backwards sense."

"If that helps you in duplicating the effects," the gunman agreed, making Cloud give him a look. If he didn't know better, he would've thought that the man was humouring him. Vincent wasn't the sort to humour anyone, though, so instead Cloud shook his head and got back to work.

Week passed so, with little results in the matter of his transformation - or physical illusion, whichever it had been. Cloud tried to make it to the Shinra mansion every day, but it wasn't always possible. On his mother's days' off he couldn't really go anywhere, and then there were his friends to consider. Tom in particular, seeing that he lived relatively close by, was a constant visitor that Cloud had to humour to keep up with his pretence. Thankfully there were hours early in the morning, after his mother had headed of to work, and none of his friends were awake yet, when Cloud was completely alone and could safely slip to the mansion.

Working with the transformation wasn't the only thing he and Vincent did. The plate he had taken off the Enemy Launcher gun took some work too - though he could utilise it as it was, it was awkward, just being a random lose plate as it was. Cloud spend almost an entire day, taking apart one of the better survived couches in the upper floor of the mansion to get its leather, and then to fit the metal plate to it to make a sort of awkward accessory belt. It was rather ugly and ungainly, but once he managed to get the buckle right, he could wrap it around his waist under his clothes, where it and the Materia orbs it now carried remained safely hidden - and in close enough contact to his skin so that he could use the Materia without any trouble.

Then there was the mansion itself and all the secrets buried in its vaults. Though Cloud had been through Nibelheim many times in the future, he had never really taken the time to explore the mansion and to read through the files there. With Vincent watching his back and making sure no monsters would attack him, he finally took the time, curling comfortably in the armchair in the basement study and just reading through the files and folders.

Lotof the text was blacked out; no doubt by some order to hide some secret things as soon as they had been printed, but what was left was more than enlightening. Fifteen years ago Midgar's "rebuilding" hadn't even begun, and there had been no superb science laboratories for ShinRa's Science Department to use. Back then, people's opinions about ShinRa had still been enough to sway the company too, seeing that ShinRa Electric Power Company hadn't yet been quite the megalith it was now and in the future. So, fifteen years ago, the company had actually taken some efforts to hide their dirty deeds. Such as human experimentation.

For a long while, the mansion at Nibelheim had been the base of operations for the entire science department for the company - hidden under the guise of being ShinRa's president's summer home. ShinRa's workers had maintained a reputation at the mansion, making the people of Nibelheim think that it was constantly used for wild parties and such, and that President Shinra loaned the place to anyone he wished - to cover for the traffic going in and out. It also helped cover the noise.

Sephiroth had been no where near the first child to be born under the cameras and lights and scalpels of ShinRa scientist. He had been, however, their first and no doubt greatest success. Though majority of the texts about Sephiroth was blacked out, all the scientific jargon hidden under black lines and the man himself was only mentioned as Subject S or Experiment S, it was still a lot of information about him. Mostly about the tests that had been less medical and more situational.

"No wonder he went insane, reading this stuff," Cloud murmured, leafing through one of the documents. Judging by the way it read, Hojo had gotten some major kicks out of testing_ subject S_'s endurance and strength_._ It was a bit odd, though. Sephiroth had spent at least the first seven years of his life in Nibelheim, playing guinea pig to Hojo and his assistants, being subjugated to experiments and half a dozen types of Mako transfusions. Reading that stuff had driven Sephiroth beyond his breaking point, sure… that, and finding out he wasn't entirely human. But hadn't he already known that stuff? He had been _living it_. Why had it shocked him so much?

Unless Sephiroth simply hadn't remembered.

Frowning, Cloud glanced up to the file, and to Vincent who was browsing through the bookshelves. "Have you yet seen anything involving memory loss or amnesia?" he asked, twiddling with the edge of the papers thoughtfully. Mako caused some major memory problems - he himself was a walking talking proof of that. And the amount of Mako Hojo had pumped into Sephiroth… it was wonder the man had had any mind left, in the end.

Though on other hand, maybe he hadn't.

"Amnesia," Vincent said thoughtfully, frowning and glancing around. After moment, he left the room and headed to the laboratory. Cloud blinked after him before shrugging his shoulders and going back to the file he had been reading - only to be called away from it, when the gunman returned.

"Here," Vincent said and handed him a single sheet of paper. Confused, Cloud accepted it and quickly read through it. It was another experiment transcript, the dates, the scientific names of the medicines and procedures used all blacked out, but the important stuff between the lines still there.

_ at XXXX. The experiment XX on the matter of substance XX started on XX. Subject shows astonishing reactivity to the XX, and was put under close observation. The trial period will proceed from XX to XX, the results of which are detailed in the form XX. _

_ at XXXX. The dosage was increased from XX to XX and thorough the next XX hours, the condition of the subject S grows more erratic. Subject was put under observation at XX._

_ at XXXX. Subject fell into a coma at XX. Suspected level XX M-poisoning. Observation continues._

_ at XXXX. Subject regained consciousness for XX minutes. Exhibits symptoms of amnesia - did not recognise any of the scientists or nurses. Observation continues._

_ at XXXX. Professor XX has decreed that nothing is done about subject's memory loss. Subject's transfer to XX has been approved, and will commence in at XXXX._

"I didn't think it was of any importance," Vincent said while Cloud scowled at the paper. "I gathered that in the early stages of the program, memory failures with the subjects were a common problem."

"I know," Cloud nodded. "I think one of those subjects might've been Sephiroth," he murmured, and then drummed his fingers against his knee, thinking it through. Well, it wasn't like he hadn't known Sephiroth wasn't all right in the head and that Hojo had a great big hand on that. But to know it had started so early, so violently… it meant something.

"Why do you wish to read these?" Vincent asked, as Cloud set the paper about amnesiac test subject aside carefully. Glancing up to the man, the boy immediately could tell he didn't disapprove or find it useless - he was actually curious.

"If I know Aerith, she's going to do something about this all," Cloud answered, shrugging his shoulders. "The more I know, the better I can help her."

"You intend to become a scientist?"

The boy snorted. "No," he answered. "But maybe I can work odd jobs at lab assistant." He grinned faintly at the gunman's expressionless stare, and then went back to reading.

The rest of the time passed like that, reading the files, trying to make his transformation to work, while outside the mansion Cloud maintained his child-appearance and hid everything that was really going on. The second of June was a tense day for Cloud, as it was another of his mother's days off, and hiding how anxious he was about what was going to happen was hard.

"I pre-ordered a book at the library - I was supposed to get it today," he said, in attempt to excuse his tenseness. The sound of it falling from his lips nearly made him wince. He really needed to learn to be a better liar. Though if hundred years hadn't been long enough time to teach him, then it probably would never happen.

Despite how the lie sounded to him, however, is mother only smiled - now more used to the fact that Cloud read a whole lot more than he had used to and that studying was something he was actually somewhat interested in. "What is the book about?" she asked, and awkwardly he was forced to invent a book about Materia on the spot, hoping she wouldn't ask to see the book one day, seeing that it most likely didn't even exist.

The day dragged on impossibly slow, and the night was even slower - his child's body was helpless against the anxiety and excitement and wouldn't fall asleep when he wanted to. When he finally managed it, he was left pretty few hours to sleep.

Still, the next morning he dragged himself off the bed determinately, forcing any tiredness away and bracing himself. He had to be sharp, and even if Vincent would be there to watch his back and make sure that everything went according to plan, he couldn't afford any weaknesses. It was important day. The day one of the most evil men on the Planet died.

And when Cloud Strife, age five, became a killer.

x

"Is everything set?" was Cloud's first question, after he had slid into theShinraMansion. It had taken him a little longer to get away than he would've liked, because after his mother had left for work Tom and Leksa had showed up almost immediately after. He had been forced to feign illness to be able to politely turn their visit down.

Vincent, who had met him in the front hall like he always did, nodded, crouching down on the floor beside him so that they'd be on the same eyelevel. "I used the night to prepare," he said, and as he did the stench of the front hall strict the boy, almost making him lift his hand and cover his nose.

"Ugh. Have to say you did a good job. Gods," Cloud murmured, forcing back the urge to gag at the smell. Then he heard the noise - the growling and snarling of the mansion's monsters in the other rooms. By the sound of it they were clawing the walls. Frowning slightly, Cloud looked at the man beside him. "The doors?"

"Shut and locked," Vincent said and nodded above them, to the ceiling. "I set the trigger line up there."

"Good, good," Cloud nodded and glanced over the hall thoughtfully and nodded with satisfaction. Nothing seemed to be amiss. How Vincent had managed to make the place look the same dusty hall it had been before he didn't know, but the man had really done a remarkable job. Aside from the stench, everything was perfectly normal. "Do they cover setting traps in the Turks?" he asked. The hall looked nothing like the death trap it was.

"Yes," Vincent answered shortly, and gave him a look. "Though nothing quite as messy as this one."

"Well, I never was a Turk, so I don't think all sneaky like you guys do," Cloud chuckled darkly, and cast another glance over the room, trying not to feel nervous. The plan as good as it was going to get while staying within the limits of needing it to look natural. There was no better way to go about it. Well, short of staging a fire and burning the place and all possible occupants in it down, or something similar, anyway, and he wanted to keep the mansion itself intact. Still, he couldn't help but feel like he was missing something, some little thing.

He shook his head. Even if he had missed something, Vincent probably wouldn't have. "Okay, let's trap the door and sit down to wait," he said, and nodding Vincent turned to the entrance door. Setting it was easy enough a task. The next time it would be opened and closed, it would lock so that it couldn't be opened from the inside - simple trap, but which was one of the most important aspects of the plot. They couldn't have their victims escaping so easily, after all.

"Now we wait," Cloud murmured, once the door was set. Vincent nodded and crouched down beside him again, offering his arm to the boy. After another look at the hall Cloud accepted it, and was carefully lifted up to the man's arms, before Vincent easily leaped into the air, and up to the ceiling where they took seat in the crisscrossing beams.

Then they waited… and waited.

Cloud wasn't stranger to this, not really. The waiting game was familiar to him, not just in the terms of killing people. Great part of luring chocobos was waiting too, not to mention about other more mundane things in life. Waiting as a little kid, though, that was a bit harder. A five-year-old's body was a fair bit needier than that of a Mako enhanced adult. Of course he had prepared for that, and brought himself something to eat and drink, but there was just the sheer physical anxiety that made sitting still just… hard. A child was practically conditioned to move - and Cloud hadn't helped himself there, with his fairly exercises and such.

Eventually, just to stop himself from going nuts with the urge to just _do something_, he begun to walk back and forth in the beams, under Vincent's watchful eye. The man said nothing, but Cloud knew the man worried about him in his own way - Cloud probably would've too, if the positions had been reversed and it was Vincent who was stuck in a kid's fragile form. Even though Vincent probably still didn't know what to think about him, the man still _looked after him_. If hovering behind someone's shoulder and killing monsters before they killed him could be called looking after.

If Cloud would've fallen now, the man would've probably caught him before he hit the ground. It was… oddly gratifying thing to realise.

Pushing the thought aside before it could distract him, Cloud stopped at the crossing of the beams, and tilted his head. "Is that…?" he asked, trailing always the distant noise grew louder.

"Helicopter," Vincent agreed holding out his hand, which Cloud automatically took. They retreated to the corner of the ceiling, where the beams would hide them the best and where Vincent had set the trigger line. Then they waited, listening how the sound of the mechanical roar grew closer and closer, until the windows of the mansion shook and, finally, the helicopter landed in front of it, its pilot shutting off the engines

Leaning against Vincent's side, Cloud lifted his hand atop the Materia belt at his waist, and rested his fingers on the Mystify Materia. At his side, the black haired man slowly pulled out his gun, holding it ready in case he needed to use it. A moment passed in tense silence as the helicopter outside grew silent, then another moment, before they could hear talking - male voices, too distant to tell what they were saying.

"Hojo," Vincent said under his breath, his fingers gripping his old gun harder and Cloud nodded, having recognised the voice as well. Tseng had been right about the time of arrival then. That had been his biggest worry, really - that Hojo would change his schedule, or send someone else. How Tseng had known the professor would be here at this exact day, Cloud didn't know, but he didn't really care either. Tseng had his ways - and right now, Cloud needed to concentrate into his own part of the hit.

The door of the mansion was pulled open. "…research material, and not for your eyes, Turk," familiar voice said, sneer in his voice as he stepped inside. "Make sure to remember that."

"Yes, professor," another familiar voice said, and Cloud perked up a bit with surprise. As two men stepped into the mansion's hall, the boy glanced down carefully and frowned. It had been decades since he had heard that other voice - but he remembered it, just because of how rare it had been when the man had been alive. Rude. Younger than Cloud had ever seen the man, but still, very definitely Rude.

Why had Tseng send Rude here with the professor? Rude had always been, as far as Cloud knew anyway, one of Tseng's most loyal and skilled underlings - Rude had even became the head of Turks after Tseng had stepped down. Why send him here, with someone Tseng himself had ordered a hit on?

Unless Rude was sent for that exact purpose - to ensure that the hit went as planned, or if Cloud wasn't there as planned, then to make the hit himself. There was no way for Tseng and Reeve to know that the Cloud who had signed their odd little package was the Cloud they knew, after all.

"Shit," Cloud mouthed, grimacing, as two other Turks came in, these ones unknown to him. But if he knew Tseng, it was entirely possible that they were his loyal ones as well. Which was somewhat bad - as the plan hadn't really included the necessity of keeping the accompanying Turks alive.

Vincent nudged at his shoulder, lifting his eyebrows slightly.

"The Turks. We can't kill the Turks," Cloud mouthed to him.

The gunman scowled and seemed to think about it. Before they could come with a plan to compensate, the front door of the Shinra mansion was pulled shut by the draft - like they had planned - and Hojo, Rude and the two Turks were, unknowns to themselves, locked inside a death trap.

"Nothing we can do," Vincent finally mouthed to the boy, merciless and blunt. "Hit Hojo - if the Turks are any good, they'll take care of themselves."

Cloud bit his lip, glancing down at Turk. He had rather liked the man in the future - once they had gotten over the part of their lives when they had been enemies. Rude had been short spoken and even more curt than Vincent, but the man had been best company guy could have while drinking. Rude had, under the stoic exterior, pretty hilarious personality.

But Vincent was right. If they aborted the trap now, making the hit look like natural event would be hard, borderline impossible.

Grimacing, Cloud nodded, and ran his fingers over the Mystify Materia. While Vincent reached up and pulled the trigger line, unlocking all the doors inside the mansion, Cloud drew the energy out of the Materia, calling forth the Confusion spell and then holding it as steadily as he could in his hand.

There was a moment of silence - and then a snarl echoed in the hall. The four people in the trap, who had been grimacing and complaining about the stench, looked up with surprise, as the first monster barged into the room, lured in by the blood Vincent had soaked the floor boards with. It was only the first of many, as from every room and every nest, hungry monsters rushed forward, expecting to find a weak prey to delight in.

As the Turks hurriedly took fighting position and pulled out weapons, Cloud aimed his hand at Hojo, and quietly cast the Confusion spell on him, hoping that he had gotten it right. The monsters of the mansion were smart, for beasts, and they always went for the weakened ones. Hojo wasn't a fighter, and under a status ailment he'd be the easiest, most alluring prey.

The scene below Cloud and Vincent turned immediately into a chaos. It was hard to say if Hojo had fallen under the Confusion or not - he was in the middle of the melee. The Turks, who had immediately spread around him to protect him, were good - even though younger than Cloud had ever seen him, Rude was obviously a seasoned fighter already, and so were the others. They faced the monsters with skill, not quite matching the skill of Vincent or Cloud's elder form, but definitely holding their ground.

"Hit one of them with sleep," Vincent whispered into his ear, and Cloud nodded. Running his fingers over the Seal Materia, he dragged the spell out before selecting one of the Turks whom he didn't know and aiming down. He waited for a moment when the others weren't looking at the man and when there was a monster attacking him, before launching the spell. The man, obviously not expecting to be attacked from above, was instantly hit, and like loosing his consciousness, he slumped down. And like that, the protective formation of the Turks had a hole in it.

Feeling a little faint with the usage of magic, Cloud steeled himself once more, and drew out another Confusion spell. The professor was wobbling a little under the first one, waving his hand around haphazardly, but it obviously hadn't yet been enough for the monsters to notice. Hitting him again with the Confusion was almost too much for Cloud's child's body, but as he saw the monsters finally taking notice, he was glad he had. Alerted by the previous Confusion spells, the monsters all turned their attention to Hojo - and begin emitting their own magic at him, immediately putting him under.

As Cloud slumped down against Vincent, the use of magic having drained his energy, the man's arm came around him to steady him. At first Cloud that was all he intended, but as Vincent's hand came to rest on the belt, Cloud could feel the man drawing in the magic. While the blond boy watched, the gunman launched another Confusion spell - this one at Rude. As the dark skinned Turk stumbled under the spell, the protective formation was thoroughly ruined, and the monsters all lurched forward, aiming for the weakest of the four men.

Hojo might've said something, maybe cried out, but it was drowned under the growling and snarling - and then the man himself was swarmed, the eager monsters covering him nearly completely. Cloud couldn't help the satisfied smile, as he heard something ripping and something cracking, and then saw a splatter of blood, hitting the floor near by.

By the time the last Turk turned around and used his twin daggers to try and chase the monsters away, try and release the professor, it was already too late. The monsters had gone for the most vulnerable spots and Hojo, wearing no protective gear except a normal lab coat, had been defenceless. His throat and chest had been both gnawed and clawed open, and though he was still alive somehow when the Turk managed to chance the monsters off, it wouldn't last for long - not with his throat torn open, his arteries spilling his blood out as fast as his heart could pump it.

As the last unaffected Turk desperately tried to fight the now blood crazed monsters back, calling for help between swings and swipes of his blades, Vincent and Cloud watched silently until Hojo's hand, which had been desperately trying to stop the blood flow, fell and the man's pain and panic hazy eyes turned glassy.

"Very effective and more than convincing," Vincent murmured. "You'd make a good Turk."

"That's almost a compliment," Cloud answered. Below them, Rude came out from the haze of Confusion and joined his fellow Turk in fight - soon even the fallen third one came back to, after the power of the sleep spell wore off. Cloud shook his head with slightly morbid awe, as all three of them promptly declared that professor Hojo was a lost case, and in unison turned to flee the mansion. As the door refused to buck under even their combined strength and they turned to another exit, Cloud realised what he had missed when making the plan. The windows - which Rude wasted no time in breaking.

Well, it didn't matter now. "Mission accomplished," Cloud murmured, sitting down heavily and rubbing his neck. Casting the magic had really taken a lot out of him.

"Mm," Vincent nodded, giving him a look. "We need to clean up," he said. "They will no doubt return to get the body - and if they can't, they will call in a bigger crew."

Cloud nodded. The evidence of their presence and the traps they had set - the triggers of the doors, for one - needed to be removed. "Before my strength returns, I won't be much use with that," he noted and scowled. He had forgotten how hard magic could be, without Mako enhancements. Even simple spells like Confusion and Sleep.

"I didn't think you would be. I'll deal with it. Come. I'll take you outside - you can't stay here," Vincent said, and without waiting for Cloud to agree, he lifted the boy to his arms. Cloud sighed with defeat and just wrapped his arms around the man's neck, as the gunman carried him over the ceiling beams and to one of the rooms in the back, taking him through the window and outside. "You will need to circle around the mansion to avoid being seen the Turks," the man said, once he finally set him down again.

Cloud nodded. "Good luck," he said, and then remembered something. "Oh, try and see if you can do something about the safe? I kind of broke it open before I came to see you the first time," he said.

Vincent nodded at that, and then vanished back into the mansion in blur of ragged red fabric. Cloud shook his head after him, and then dashed into the forest, intending to make as much distance between him and the scene of Hojo's death as he just could. Vincent would be able to fill him in about what happened next, but for now Cloud had done all he could.

As he ran, he allowed himself a satisfied chuckle. Hojo was dead - good fifteen years too early. Fifteen years of experiments and horrors would never happen. His own and Zack's horrible futures were prevented. It would have no doubt other side effects too - who knew what Shinra would come up with Hojo dead, what kind of mad scientist would step forward to fill Hojo's boots - and he didn't even dare to wonder what would happen to the SOLDIER program with its leading scientist gutted. But still. Hojo was _dead_.

It was a good day to be alive.

x

The helicopter stood in front of the mansion for about an hour, and then lifted off again, vanishing into the distance. Later Vincent told him that the Turks had only gone inside for long enough to get Hojo's now badly mutilated body, and bring it out - which had proven bit of a task, with the monsters happily swarming over it. According to Vincent, there hadn't been much left of the good professor, when the Turks had managed to get the corpse into a body bag.

Cloud probably shouldn't have felt as gleeful as he did at the concept.

"You'll be happy to know that all the Turks survived with minor injuries for the most part," the red eyed man said, as they looked at the abandoned Shinra Mansion from the forest. Cloud couldn't go inside just yet - the monsters were still swarming in the front hall, and he would've been too easy prey, even with Vincent there to protect him. "They should make complete recovery."

Cloud nodded. "Probably a good thing they got a bit injured," he mused, folding his arms and eyeing the mansion thoughtfully. "If they had all gone back without scratch on them, it would've probably looked a bit suspicious."

"Probably. They will still be facing a hearing for failing at their duties, but if your Tseng is as good as you think he is, it shouldn't hinder them," Vincent agreed.

"Hm. Well, so as long as they think it was just overly enthusiastic monsters and nothing else, I will call this a success," the boy said. "How long do you think the monsters will be running rampant at the mansion?"

"For as long there's still fresh blood on the floor. Couple of days, maybe a week, and they will settle down," the man answered.

Cloud nodded, and for a moment they stared at the mansion in silence. Then he cast a side ways glance at the man. "Are you going to go back to sleep?" he asked. "Now that Hojo is dead."

Vincent said nothing at first, before humming softly. "I think not," he said, frowning. "Not with you and your friends changing the history."

The boy looked up to him quietly for a moment and looked away. With Vincent it was hard to say if the man approved or not, but for now he considered it a small victory. If Vincent had wanted nothing to do with their plan, e would've simply gone back to sleep. "Maybe you should go to Midgar," he suggested. "You'd be able to keep up to date with everything that's going on."

"Maybe," Vincent agreed and glanced at him. "You will stay here, though, won't you?"

"For now. I'm a bit too young to go out there yet or to be any use to anyone. I still need to grow, train and study - and I'm not done with the files of the mansion," Cloud mused. "It'll be some years before I'll head to Midgar - unless the others come to specifically get me…" he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He hadn't expected the hit order so he wasn't entirely sure what to expect from here on. "Maybe I should find a way to get in contact with them, see what they're planning. They needed Hojo killed for some reason…"

"Hm," Vincent hummed. "I will wait. ShinRa might send a clean up crew here - if they do, you will need my help."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Cloud nodded. He still had the transformation to figure out, and without Vincent it would be hard to wander around the mansion safely. There was the reactor too - though he didn't know if Jenova was there right now. She might've been in Midgar or Junon or the Northern Crater at this point in time, for all he knew.

Drawing a deep breath, he stretched his arms. "I think I will head back home - Ma should be back from work soon," he said. "Thanks for your help, Vincent. You did most of the work, and I probably would've messed the whole thing up without you."

The man nodded gravely. "Next time I will be holding the Materia," he said, turning to leave.

Cloud grinned sheepishly after him, rubbing the back of his head embarrassedly. The man had a point - he _still_ wasn't quite recovered from the over use of magic. "Next time, sure," he answered, and turned to head home. As he went, he glanced up the sky - the sun was coming out.

"Damn good day, today," he murmured to himself and smiled.

xx

I totally heart Vincent carrying chibi Cloud around, in case you didn't notice. :'D

My apologies for any possible grammar and canonical errors.


	5. IV, duty of a sentry

Warnings; Majorly AU, with ooc Cloud, characters' deaths and violence. Eventually slash. Written with only second-hand knowledge about Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core and whatnot, so expect canonical mistakes all over the place.

**GUARD  
**_the duty of serving as a sentry_**  
IV chapter**

For nearly a week, nothing happened. With the mansion still being swarmed by overly enthusiastic monsters, Cloud didn't see Vincent as much, as the man opted to stay in the still semi-empty basement instead of the busier actual mansion, and the boy couldn't safely venture inside without the man's protection. It put an effective block on both his studies about the mansion's files and his attempts of mastering his odd transformation, but for now he was certain he had the time to wait.

While waiting to see when he could get to the Shinra mansion, Cloud kept an eye on the news about ShinRa. There was next to no splash about Hojo's death - only a small mention in a newspaper page eight, and it in the side of a bigger article about ShinRa's new employment policies. Whether it was because ShinRa was trying to hide the fact or because the editor of the newspaper justly thought very few civilians would care, he didn't know, but it worried him a little. If the news of the Chief Scientist's death was so insignificant, what were the chances of him finding out about who would be the new Chief through the media? Fairly slight.

Aside from that, Cloud has very enthusiastic friends to distract him. Though older than him, none of his friends seemed to be immune to the child's drive to run around just doing stuff as opposed to being still, and though the games they played weren't that interesting to him, he cherished them for the exercise he got out of them. Leksa was pretty good coming up with good ones - like tag in the playing ground where they weren't supposed to touch the ground, that was hard one even for Cloud.

After each period of running around, Cloud made sure to do his sword practices - now also taking some time to see if he could work on his magic. It wouldn't do if three spells would be enough to nearly knock him out, after all - not if it would turn out that he would never become enhanced in some way in this new future. There were some dangers to staring with Materia so young - his body wasn't yet fully developed right - but he knew that if he timed it all right, scheduled it carefully, in time he might just build bigger energy reserves than he ever had. Granted, it would take some twenty years, but still. It was a thought.

Without any beep from ShinRa for nearly a week, Cloud nearly begun to believe that they wouldn't start any form of investigation about Hojo's death. Vincent's cool anticipation made him wait for it, however - that, and his own, half forgotten experiences. Even if ShinRa didn't believe that anything had been afoot with the good Professor's death, there was still some purpose as to why the man had came to Nibelheim - something he rather doubted the Turks had been privy to and something someone else would have to do, with Hojo gone.

Still, for ShinRa, the reaction was oddly delayed, and when nearly a full week after Hojo had died another helicopter flew over the village, Cloud couldn't help but think that they were late. By now all evidence would've been removed, if not by Vincent, then by the monsters, and whatever they could learn from the mansion would be tainted by the time.

But it wasn't like he minded. The less proof they could find of human hand at the ordeal, the better for him - and for Vincent.

"Another one, huh?" one of the villages murmured, as they watched the helicopter fly by, Cloud sitting in a bench after doing some exercise at the climbing frame, and she by the looks of her bags heading home after visiting the store. "ShinRa's been mighty busy this week."

"ShinRa?" Cloud asked, playing the part of a five year old who probably wasn't supposed to be too informed about the world.

"Hm-hmm," the woman nodded. "They used to be going and going all the time about seven years ago," she mused and shook her head, lifting her bags a bit higher. "Best not to pay it any mind. ShinRa's business is never good."

How very true, Cloud thought after her as she tottered along, before noticing couple of elder village boys carefully edging towards the street leading up to the Shinra mansion. After a moment of consideration, he hopped down from the bench and followed them. He wanted to see too, and hiding among other boys would make him seem nothing but another boy from Nibelheim, and nothing too strange.

"What do you want?" one of the boys asked, giving him a look.

"I want to see the helicopter," Cloud answered, opening his eyes wide and trying to look like the five year old he was supposed to me.

"Go away - we don't have the time to be playing little kids!" the boy snapped.

Cloud pouted. "I'll tell everyone you're going," he said determinately and turned to run away - when one of the boys reached out and clasped him by the shoulder.

"Not so fast, squirt," the biggest boy, who was probably the leader of the group, said. "There won't be any telling to no one."

"Hit me and I'll scream so loud your ear's will pop," Cloud answered quickly, noting that the boy had fairly big hands. With bruised knuckles to boot.

"Well, you're a practical little mommy's boy, aren't you?"

"If that gets me through," Cloud shrugged, and the bigger boy grinned

"Alright. Come along then - but don't cause any fuss."

Nodding obediently, Cloud fell in step with the teens, as they carefully made their way towards the fence separating the mansion from the rest of the village. The helicopter had landed, just like the first one, to the front of the mansion, its wing blades spinning lazily as it cooled down. Handful of Turks had stepped out of the helicopter and what looked like two SOLDIERs, judging by their uniforms and big swords.

A clean up crew, then, probably there to take care of the monsters. Bad reputation for ShinRa to have a company house swarming with them - especially with the village being so close and so vulnerable to attack.

"Are those, do you think…?" one of the boys asked, eying the two SOLDIERs with eyes full of longing. The leader of the group of boys hummed without answering. Cloud glanced at them and tried not to look as pitying as he felt. Aah, how many boys dreamed of becoming SOLDIER in these days? All of them? Apparently so, judging by the looks on everyone's faces.

Poor misguided things they were.

"You there," a voice suddenly snapped, and the big boys around Cloud tensed. "What are you doing here, this is company property -" was about far as the Turk got, before the boys all turned tail and ran as fast as they could, despite their hero worship knowing better than to get mixed up. As they fled, though, surprised Cloud was left behind, standing alone near the gates without shield of teenagers to hide him.

"Um…" he said, and then blinked as he saw who had talked. "Hi!" he said, more out of shock than anything, as he stared at familiar - and shockingly _young_ - face.

Tseng, who looked really, really young, blinked back at him. The gob smacked expression would've been completely ridiculous on the man's face, except the softness of his features somehow made it fit, which was really strange to Cloud. He was used to seeing Tseng as the sharp, ruthless man he had been. This… this _teenager_ awkwardly wearing a suit that was a size or two too big looked just _odd_.

Then, ever the Turk, Tseng fell back to his training and smoothed the shock from his face, scowling at Cloud instead. "You shouldn't be here, kid. It's not place for children," he admonished, and glanced back at the other Turks over his shoulder. "I'm going to take this kid back to the village, okay?"

"Just chase him off, rookie," one of the elder Turks said, waving a hand at him. "We have work to do."

"And people wonder why we have a bad reputation," Tseng answered with rather uncharacteristic huff. "I'll be right back," he added, and then, ignoring the jeering from the other Turks, did not only walk up to Cloud, but casually lifted the blonde boy to his arms. Cloud was rather glad that he had gotten used to it with his mother and with Vincent - thought regardless of it, it was just weird being carried by _Tseng_ of all people.

This wasn't the time to cause a scene, though. There was probably only so much time they could use to talk before Tseng had to head back and Cloud had to become five years old again. "I… didn't realise you'd be this young," the boy said thoughtfully, once they were out of hearing range, still staring at the other in wonder. But then, Tseng hadn't been exactly _old_ when they had met in the original life time.

"I could say the same to you," the man - no, the _teen_ - answered with a grim smile. He shook his head and looked ahead, though the line of his lips was uneasy.

"You must've known," Cloud answered, shaking his head. Aerith was only a year older than he was, so looking at her they should've known how old he'd be. He frowned slightly. "Which reminds me, why did you have me do it?" he asked, nodding his head towards the way they had came. "You must've had better opportunities in Midgar."

"Not really. In this time I've only been a Turk for a year or so, so I don't have that much influence. And Midgar is too closely guarded - _he_ was too closely guarded," Tseng sighed. "Another thing is that in Midgar his death could be investigated better, with state of the art equipment and extreme prejudice. Here, so far of the beaten path and out of sight…"

"Hm," Cloud mused, leaning his head back a little. Yeah, he could understand that. It was a bit weird but considering everything it had probably been the easiest way to go about it.

"And I couldn't ask anyone else to do it, couldn't hire an assassin or anything, knowing how easily they could be bribed to forget their duties. I knew that if you arrived back with us - and there was never much a doubt, really - you'd have the incentive and the ability, if not physically then mentally," the young Turk added before giving him a sideways look. "I didn't have the chance to look at the mansion, but what I heard from Rude was… enlightening. Very imaginative."

"Well, you know me, I'm the soul of original ideas," Cloud answered dryly and then frowned. "Rude knows, then?" he asked.

"Not as such, but he's… an ally of sorts," Tseng admitted and glanced behind them, towards the mansion. "Is there anything I should be careful about, when scouring the place?"

"No. Vincent should've taken care of anything, so you won't be finding anything incriminating there," Cloud said, shaking his head. "He knows," he added, when the Turk gave him a narrowed look. "Don't worry - there's not a man on the planet I wouldn't trust more than him. He helped me set up the trap too."

"Well, so as long as you know what you're doing," Tseng mused and after quick, unnoticeable glance around, he crouched down and set Cloud back to his feet. "I don't care, much, but Aerith will want to know," he started and then grimaced. "How are you?"

Cloud grinned. "I'm good - I'm great. Really. Tell her thanks for me - I didn't think I would, but I'm kind of enjoying this," he said, and then turned serious. "How is she? And what are you planning in Midgar - why did you need Hojo out of the way? Why the rush?"

"For Aerith's protection, among other things. She needs to go through some mundane channels before we can get her into the position we want her in. One of those things is going through normal schooling and we couldn't arrange that with Hojo around, standing in the way. The sooner he died, the better for everyone," the Turk said. "And I think she's having fun. She's worrying too much about everything, but you know her."

Cloud nodded. He did. "So, she's here, you're here, me. Reeve too, because there's no way you could've come up with that statue," he mused, and the man grimaced again. The boy grinned. "Rufus?" he then asked. "Yuffie?"

Tseng sighed. "We don't know whether Kisaragi came back with us - there is no way to tell, not only is she in Wutai but she probably can't even talk yet," he answered. "Rufus… didn't make it back with us."

The boy frowned. "How badly does that affect your plans?" he asked softly.

"Some. There is chance that eventually we might be able to persuade the Rufus of this time to our side - he has always been somewhat… against the company, as it is now. Child's rebellion against the father, mostly, but Rufus even as a boy was always very intelligent," Tseng mused. "We will be able to compensate not having his aid, however. So as long as myself, Tuesti and Aerith succeed in our parts of the plan."

Cloud nodded again and fell silent for a moment. He had known from the get-go that he wasn't actually necessary to their plans - that he had been asked to come along just so that they would get the planet to help them in their jump backwards in time. To hear it from horse's mouth, sort of speak, was a different thing, though. It felt like he was a tourist, in odd way.

"Will you come to Midgar?" Tseng asked after a moment. "Aerith is under constant protection, but she could use an inconspicuous bodyguard, someone about her age that no one would pay any mind to."

"I wouldn't be much use, I'm afraid. I'm still long way from being efficient fighter, or efficient anything, really," Cloud said, shaking his head. "Unless you really need me, I'd rather spent some years practicing and training and what not. Before I do, this little form of mine won't be of use to anyone. Oh, that reminds me," he murmured. "Have you guys gotten any strange… I mean, after coming back, have you transformed or something like that?"

Tseng lifted a single eye brow at him. "Well, there is one strange… ability we all gained - Aerith explained it was because of our stay in the Lifestream -" he cut off, as a voice from the mansion called for him, making him glance backwards. "I need to go back - I have to watch myself, if I ever want to become the chief of Turks again," he said, and quickly pulled something out of his pocket. A business card. "If you ever get a PHS, you can contact me in this number," he said. "But make sure it's secure."

"Sure, thanks," Cloud nodded, and hid the card to his pocket. "Give Aerith my love when you see her," he added, as the Turk stood up.

"Your _love_, Strife?" the man asked, his eyebrows rising. "Not your semi cold shoulder and only half interested grunt?"

"Yes, my _love_," Cloud snorted, pushing his hands into his pockets. "Hundred years of gloomy dilly dallying was more than enough for me. I'm a new man now. Well, a boy, but you get the idea."

"I'll be sure to make her know that," the man answered with a shake of his head. "Take care, Strife."

"You too," Cloud nodded, then watched how the man headed back towards the mansion. It was good to know what was going on, or at least some of it. The thought of Aerith going to actual school was odd and somehow fitting at the same time - though he had to wonder what they had planned, that she would need a schooling for. Would she become a employee at ShinRa? It would make sense, seeing that they wanted to change ShinRa from inside out, and she'd need a degree of some sort of that, but it was such a strange idea… Aerith, of all people, working for ShinRa.

Shaking his head, the boy turned to head back to the village. Now he just needed to figure out how to get a PHS without his mother noticing. Getting the money wouldn't be easy for a five year old, especially not with the machines being so expensive. He stopped and sighed as a thought came to him - something that, if he had realised it earlier, would've solved that problem nice and easy.

He should've demanded to be paid for the hit on Hojo.

x

The Turks and the SOLDIERs lingered for about a day, before taking off and heading off towards Rocket Town, judging by the direction the helicopter went. Vincent later informed Cloud that they hadn't really been interested about the scene of Hojo's death and had performed barely a superficial sweep of the place - mostly they had been concentrating onto the monster problem.

"They missed a couple of nests when they did, but the mansion is quieter now," the gunman said. "Couple of the Turks visited the basement, but as far as I could tell they didn't take any files. Or much look into them, either."

Which was good for Cloud, because with what few monsters still remained in the mansion were all too spooked to bother him, or they were in too much ecstasy in feasting on piles of dead monsters the SOLDIERs had left behind. They had been good at monster control, yes, but clean up? Not so much, but Cloud certainly didn't mind. It gave the rest of the creatures something else to munch, than him and he could walk around the place even without Vincent's company without much fear. Not that he did - Vincent didn't let him.

While life returned to something resembling normalcy, with Cloud returning to his previous schedule of physical training, stretches and exercises and then reading whatever seemed important, the village itself buzzed with rumours. Apparently the SOLDIER duo hadn't been too shy about letting the towns folk know what they had been there to do, and now everyone in Nibelheim knew that monsters bred in Shinra mansion. Cloud, who hadn't realise it was a secret of some sort, watched with slight confusion how the villagers cast nervous, uneasy looks towards the mansion.

Folk of Nibelheim, as far as he could remember, were hardy lot. They lived in the root of a mountain that had abundant population of wolves, not to mention about Nibel Dragons. The little things at Shinra mansion, though annoying as they were, were hardly anything to be worried about in comparison to the natural beasts of Nibel area. But apparently the others in the village didn't share the idea.

"With those ShinRa things, you never know," he could hear people whispering. "Do you suppose they're poisonous? Or… or magical?"

Maybe that was the problem. The creatures born from ShinRa's experimentation tended to be magical in one way or another - and tended to cast their magic about naturally, like the beasts of the mansion. And in Nibelheim, magic wasn't that commonly known. But still - to have people be so nervous after ShinRa people had just exercised some pest control on the place was somewhat… well, not quite amusing, but something like it.

It was amazing how Shinra had grown so powerful when so few people trusted the company. Being the only provider of energy, machinery and what not helped, probably.

The nervousness of the town folk eventually got so bad, that Mayor Lockhart held a small speech in the village square in one grey morning, trying to reassure the people. Cloud didn't hear any of it - he had been on the other side of the village, practicing, but later he heard about it from his friends who had been there to listen.

"Well, I didn't pay much mind to most of it, he was kinda going on and on," Gerald admitted, his voice hissing slightly with his lisp. "But he said he would be putting out adds for warriors and such - to get someone guard the mansion and make sure no people go in and no monsters come out."

Cloud later saw the ad in the newspaper. Mayor Lockhart was essentially offering a job to anyone skilled enough, to make sure that no monsters would get to the town and bother the folk. How the man imagined he'd get anyone to accept the job considering the pitiful amount of weekly pay offered, especially since whoever took the job would probably from out of town and need a place to stay and such, but apparently he thought it was enough.

"If this manages to interest anyone, I doubt they're any good," Cloud mused later to Vincent. "Anyone skilled enough would never take a job this bad." He certainly never would've, not without two or three more zeros at the end.

"Hm," the gunman answered, reaching out and taking the paper from the boy's hands, glancing over it. He read through the ad and then nodded. "This will do," he decided.

The next day, Vincent applied for the post as Nibelheim's sentry - and got it after display of gunmanship. While Cloud watched from the side, trying to understand what the hell the man was thinking now, and while the entire village buzzed with rumours about the very strange stranger the Mayor had hired, Vincent rented the poorest, most weather worn cottage in the side of the village. Then he, seemingly deaf to the whispers of the villagers, set into the daily routine of sitting in front of the Shinra mansion, watching the place.

It would've been almost amusing. The entire town went from fearing the mansion to being curious about their new sentry. There were some people who were suspicious, of course, who immediately took a hostile stance towards Vincent, but overall the reaction was sheer unadulterated curiosity. Vincent did strike a pretty intriguing figure, in his ragged red cape and with golden metal gauntlet, not to mention about the sheer atmosphere around the man. After people figured out that he wasn't going to shoot them on sight - or suck their blood, though the vampire rumours did persist - the curiosity even got pretty open and blatant.

Men sized him up, wondering about his strength, while women giggled behind their hands and few curious, bold boys approached him, asking about his gun and what it was like to shoot and what not. Vincent seemed to ignore most all of it, except knowing him better than that Cloud could see the embarrassment in the tenseness of his shoulders as he edged away from the curiosity. Especially from the couple of teenage girls who had came to offer him some refreshments, ignoring the admonishments of the elder women, telling them that the gunman was dangerous.

First Hojo and the Turks, then the monsters and now Vincent. Nibelheim probably hadn't so much drama happening since the reactor had been built.

"Why?" Cloud asked under his breath later, after going through the awkward motions of being a supposedly curious five year old boldly approaching the stranger in hopes of hearing stories and such from out of town. His friends, who were nervously lingering behind the gates of the Shinra mansion, watched with wide eyes, hissing him to get back.

"It will be easier for you," Vincent answered, glancing behind them towards Cloud's friends, who all quickly ducked out of sight. There was almost hint of smile on the man's face. "Your friends seem… fidgety."

"They're just kids," Cloud shrugged and looked at him thoughtfully. "Easier how?"

"I can do things you can't." Vincent shrugged.

Cloud didn't really understand what that meant, until week later when, after getting his first meagre pay check, Vincent used it to buy a PHS. Knowing that Vincent himself had no need for such thing - the man had no one to call and even if he had, fifteen years in the coffin would've been enough time for those people to change their PHS' and numbers. No, the phone was for Cloud - of which the first number recorded to the PHS was a clear proof of.

"Is it secure?" Cloud asked, flipping the PHS open.

"As secure as you can get here," Vincent answered.

"Not much, then. You wouldn't happen to have any gil left?" the blond asked, already prying the back panel of the phone open to see the circuitry. "With little bit of hardware I could make sure that it is."

"You know electronics?" the red eyed man asked

"Not as well as I know my engines and metal working, but I think I know enough to make a little signal jammer into this, make sure that any calls and messages are at least untraceable," the boy mused.

His relationship with Vincent fell into it's usual course without a hitch, though this time their meeting place was either in front of the mansion or at Vincent's pathetic house - made only serviceable by the fact that Vincent didn't actually need it to live, and that he had only rented for appearances sake. Cloud didn't quite realise what it all looked like on the outside until his mother started asking about the man with a slightly worried frown about her features.

"Vincent?" Cloud asked, after she had asked him what he was like. "He's quiet. Knows a lot. Broods," he answered honestly and scratched his cheek. "He's cool," he added awkwardly.

"What do you do, when you go to Mr. Valentine's house?" Skye asked, gripping the eating utensils hard in her fingers.

"I read. He has lot of books you can't find in the library," Cloud answered, making a quick mental note to ask Vincent to transfer some of their reading material from the Shinra mansion's basement into his own house. Looking at his mother for a moment, he pursed his lips. It wasn't like her to worry so much - but then again, he hadn't spent so much time with another adult, not as far as she knew anyway. Maybe something about it had freaked her out? "Maybe you should come visit him with me sometime," he suggested, wondering how to reassure her. "I mean, when you have a day off. And if Vincent agrees. He's kind of… anti-social."

Skye gave him a long look and then hummed. "Yes, maybe," she nodded, still looking oddly worried and sharp eyed. "Cloud, you do know that you don't… that if an adult tells you to do something, but you don't want to do it, you don't have to, right?" she then said - and with a bang Cloud realised what she was worried about.

It took some effort not to burst into laughter, but he was glad he managed it, as she seemed genuinely worried. "Ma, it's not like that," he said quickly. "Vincent is not like that, at all. He's like… the most not like that person on planet," he explained awkwardly, not sure if he was yet supposed to know what the word asexual meant. Probably not.

She kept looking at him worriedly and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, not sure how to convince her. "Seriously, Ma. They had this talk with me and the school, about good guys and bad guys and what not, and Vincent is not a bad guy. I swear." He said earnestly, still feeling like he ought to be laughing his little ass off, but trying to stop himself. "And, well… not supposed to tell this, but he's mourning."

"Oh," Skye said, blinking with surprise and then looking down in embarrassment. "Ah, he's a widower? I didn't know that."

Cloud shrugged. Vincent might as well be. There had never been a more widower-like person than Vincent - he had turned it into an art form. "Don't tell anyone," he said, pointing his fork at her. "I wasn't supposed to tell either. It's his private business."

"Yes, yes, of course, I'll keep it to myself," Skye nodded and then sighed, before smiling helplessly. "Well, maybe I should meet Mr. Valentine sometime; see why you like him so much." This time she said it without the anxiety in her eyes.

Cloud grinned in answer and turned back to his food. He'd be sure to tell about the conversation to Vincent - it would be worth it just to see the look on the man's face.

x

The first meeting between Vincent Valentine and Skye Strife was fairly short and sweet - and awkward as hell. It nearly sent the boy into laughter when the two of them circled around the insults and resorted into awkward polite banter which neither of them could quite manage right. It probably didn't help that earlier that day Cloud had told Vincent about his mother's assumptions, and then had the pleasure of seeing the man absolutely mortified first time in either time line.

"So, you've taken Cloud under your wing?" Skye finally asked, lapsing into her usual brand of brusque. "Why him, out of all the kids here?Lotof the boys here must be falling over themselves to get you to show them some of your fighting skills."

"Cloud is… bearable company," Vincent admitted awkwardly and he looked so embarrassed that Cloud just had to hug the man.

"I like you too, Vincent," the boy said, grinning widely as the former Turk tried to squirm away.

"Hm," Skye said, looking down Cloud with surprised eyes before smiling awkwardly. "Well then. So as long he doesn't bother you too much."

After that Skye didn't only permit Cloud to visit Vincent, but he often send him with sandwiches to the man - which she didn't know Vincent didn't need, but which Cloud happily ate himself. She still seemed a bit at odds with it, but she didn't stop him and even asked him what they had been doing this and that time, going as far as to encourage him. It was… a bit strange, really, until Cloud figured out why the sudden change. About a week later Cloud could hear her in the convenience store, talking with the clerk who was asking her how she could allow her innocent son to interact with that strange vagabond.

"Mr Valentine seems decent enough man, and Cloud's been lacking a reliable male figure in his life so far," Skye said awkwardly, and suddenly Cloud felt a bit embarrassed about the whole thing.

That didn't mean that anything would change, though. Like Vincent had said, it was easier this way. Cloud didn't need to sneak about anymore, Vincent did enough of that for both of them and now Cloud could read through the files in Vincent's little living room, rather than below the mansion. There was also the fact that Vincent was a seasoned fighter, and training with him rather than alone was a bit more fortuitous. Vincent was a gunman through and through, but he had seen and known enough fighters to serve as Cloud's practice opponent when ever he needed one - and his sword practice was in the point where he needed one daily.

Then there was the PHS, through which he could keep in touch with Tseng and Reeve too, once Tseng had relayed the number to him. They didn't call that much, the two men both being too busy and too paranoid for it, and instead they communicated mostly through coded text messages. Reeve and Tseng were kind enough to report him some of the more secret happenings at Midgar, and to relay Aerith's messages.

"No more dilly dally shilly shally?" was Aerith's first message, punctuated by a winking smiley.

"Nope. Laughter and sunshine from here on." Cloud wrote back, grinning faintly

"Who are you and what did you do to Cloud?" Aerith answered, this time with a laughing smiley.

"I ate him." Cloud wrote and threw a smiley of his own to the message. It was the start of long line of text messaging, that ate about half of Vincent's pay check before Aerith managed to tone it down - most likely due to similar problems in the other end with poor Tseng, who's PHS Aerith mostly used.

But, regardless of how carefully they coded their messages, there were some things and some information they didn't dare to exchange over a PHS line - so while Cloud was informed about the general things, the more important things he still didn't know much about. Like what Aerith was really planning, or how things were proceeding on that matter. It wasn't that bad, really - he trusted Tseng and Reeve to take care of Aerith in either case, and they would let him know if something went wrong - but he still would've preferred to know everything.

But there was nothing to it - he had endured not knowing anything before, so knowing some was definitely better.

Time seemed to go past quicker now, with Vincent in the village and Cloud never lacking anything to do. Before he knew it, the summer was over, and his first year at school - with kids much older than him - loomed ahead. While his mother bustled around with some excitement, rushing to get him a backpack and pens and books and even building him a lunch box and all, Cloud himself waited the start of school somewhat calmly. It wasn't like he had anything to be nervous about.

"What about when you finish early?" Vincent asked. "Given that you won't skip any more grades, you will be still four years ahead of everyone."

"Hm," Cloud hummed. He'd finish with primary school at age of eleven if everything went as planned - which was not only early, but the first time for him. Last time around he had dropped out so that he could head off to become a SOLDIER. "I don't know," he finally said. Going to high school or trying to see if he could learn an occupation, it seemed… well, he really didn't know. It could be useful. Or it could be waste of his time. It was hard to say at this point. "I guess I will cross that bridge when I get to it," he shrugged. "Who knows, Aerith might need me in Midgar before I graduate and it will never be an issue."

"If she called, you would drop everything and go, wouldn't you?" Vincent asked, sounding neither surprised nor disapproving.

"As fast as I could," Cloud shrugged. No point hiding it.

The gunman said nothing for a moment before sighing. "I wish I had such loyalty," he said - though whether he meant that he wished he could be so loyal or that someone could be so loyal to him, Cloud didn't know. It didn't really matter either.

When the school finally started, it turned out to be not that different from when he had been on his trial period - in fact, it was slightly looser on the terms of schedule, as he no longer needed to do tests for the teachers' amusement just about every day. At first it seemed like nothing but efficient way to waste time, but some of the teachers seemed to take personal pleasure in helping him forward in life, so they went their way to especially find him things he didn't know - history books, mathematic problems, logic puzzles, longwinded articles about chemical reactions. Honestly, some of it went way past Cloud, but it was only more interesting when it did -because then the teachers actually got to teach him, and that was a new notion.

Despite that, though, it was the self-lessons with Vincent Cloud preferred, especially after Vincent somehow got his hands onto couple of actual practice swords - though whether he made them or bought them somewhere Cloud wasn't entirely sure. They were only wood, weighed down by some sort of metal inside to stimulate actual sword's weigh - and definitely much, much better than the wooden batons of before.

"Do you want an actual sword?" Vincent asked, while once more serving as target for Cloud to practice his attacks on. Despite not being a swordsman, Vincent was a good opponent to test against - the man's strength and speed covered him where he lacked the skill.

"One day, when I'm bigger. I'll probably make it myself," Cloud answered, thinking wistfully about his fusion sword. There was no way he could make exact duplicate of the sword - in this timeline he would probably never get his hands onto the materials. But a simpler fusion sword, maybe three or four piece one… that could work. Never as well as the one he had in the future, of course, but…

Before Cloud knew what had happened, Vincent had hurriedly jumped back, red eyes wide with surprise. "What?" Cloud asked, and almost stumbled at the sound of his own voice, the feel of weight in his hand - the sudden length of his body. Eyes widening and mouth falling open, he glanced down to himself.

"Oh. Hello," he said to himself, as he had been. Tall, strong, wearing a vest and sturdy travelling pants and nice tough pair of combat boots - and, most of all, holding his fully assembled fusion sword in his hand. Which, had Vincent not jumped back, would've sliced his practice opponent.

"What did you do? What triggered the transformation? Quickly, Cloud, think!" Vincent ordered, as Cloud pulled the sword back embarrassedly, resting the back of the blade against his shoulder.

"I was… I was thinking of the sword," the blond admitted, shaking the sword in his hand in indication. Then he frowned as he remembered. Hadn't he been thinking about the sword when he had been attacked by the monsters too? "Oh for the love of…" he groaned. "You got to be kidding me! That's it? I need to think of my sword, and I transform?"

The gunman eyed him with surprise before frowning. "That seems… quite an odd trigger."

"Don't knock my sword down - it's the most powerful blade ever made," Cloud said, pointing accusing finger at the gunman. "Forged from the ULTIMA sword - and that, let me tell you, was not easy task. Hardest, most powerful stuff in the world, the ULTIMA metal. Took me whole year to get it right."

Vincent just eyed him, and shaking his head Cloud swung the sword down, running his hand along the thick assembly of six blades. They felt right. The shimmer of energy, ancient and powerful, was there. Cloud frowned slightly. It felt _right_. It felt like the actual thing - not like some sort of… illusion or copy.

"Am I transforming or am I summoning the sword?" Cloud murmured to himself. "Is that even possible?"

"Whichever it is aside," Vincent said slowly, "now that we have some idea how you manage it, we need to figure out the limits of it. What's the strength of it, the duration - does it drain your energy and how much. What are the benefits and what are the downsides."

Cloud nodded, holding the blade upright in his hands. It was good to have it again, even if it would be gone in a while. He didn't feel quite as complete without it, not after all the decades it had been with him.

"Pity we're not in the mansion," he said, and lowered the blade again. "I would like to have some real fighting done."

"Relying on this transformation or summoning, whichever it is, would be most unwise if there is a time limit to it," Vincent warned.

"I know, I know. But just to be _me_ for a while, that's nice," the blond said and shook his head. "Okay, testing the limits of this weird ability of mine. How do we go about it?"

"First we will see how long it lasts and how it fades away - after that you will try again," Vincent said.

"Alright," Cloud nodded and frowned. "If I stay conscious," he muttered, remembering how he had simply dropped the last time. This time he wasn't bleeding to death, though, so maybe that would make a difference.

The wait was rather odd - they both kept glancing at a clock and all of sudden there seemed to be nothing to do around Vincent's pathetic little house. In the end they ended up sitting in nearly perfect silence for the twenty four minutes it took for his heavy sword to start to fade away, and for his body to return to normal. As Cloud was left holding the wooden practice sword, such a pitiful thing in comparison to the sword he had just been holding, Vincent marked the time.

"Twenty four minutes exactly, as far as I can tell," the man said. "How do you feel?" he asked, turning to the boy - and then frowning slightly. "Cloud?"

"Uh…" Cloud grunted, as the practice sword fell from fingers that suddenly didn't have any energy left to hold it. "I'll, I'll get back to you on that," he said weakly, before everything went dark.

When he woke up hour or so later, Vincent had apparently gone through his cupboards and had actually managed to make Cloud something to eat. The smell of freshly made porridge was almost as sweet to suddenly starved Cloud, as it was just… weird. Vincent of all people. _Cooking_.

Maybe he was having a dream?

Cloud frowned and then groaned slightly as sudden dizziness and fatigue hit him. Nope, definitely awake. Even his worse nightmares didn't leave him feeling this bad - and that was saying something.

Vincent, noticing that he was awake, quickly filled a bowl for him, before approaching the couch where Cloud was lying. "I think it is safe to say that transforming drains your power," the black haired gunman said, while helping Cloud to sit and handing the bowl to him. "Eat."

"Is it _edible_?" Cloud asked somewhat hazily, but accepted the spoon offered. It took conscious effort to hold it in his hand, and with a sigh he slumped slightly against the backrest of the couch. "It's weird, but I think I felt _better_ last time," he admitted, shivering slightly and quickly spooning some of the porridge to his mouth. It was fairly tasteless but at least it was warm.

"I believe that might've been due to your injuries - your body reacting to the pain and trying to ensure your survival. This time no such things factored, so the transformation drained all energy you had," the gunman said. "Or so it would seem. If that is the case, then the transformation is more like a spell or summoning, than a limit break, which releases energy, rather than drains it."

"Yeah," Cloud nodded, giving the man a look. That was the longest speech he had heard from him in this time. Shaking his head, he turned to the porridge, turning his thoughts to the transformation. "So. It is a spell or a summon or something in between. A draining manifestation of energy rather than discharge, in any case. If it's like a spell in that sense, do you think it will be a spell in other aspects too?"

"You mean, if you can stop it before it drains all your energy?" Vincent asked. "It is entirely possible. You would have to transform again to try, however."

"Forgive me if I don't do it right now," Cloud answered, running his hand through his again slightly longer hair. He could start pulling it to the old ponytail soon. "I'm not entirely sure if I can even _stand_ right now."

"Take your time. And eat your food," the man told him calmly and with snort Cloud did as ordered.

He tried it again about an hour later, after his energy had returned to him somewhat. While Vincent eyed the clock to take the time Cloud concentrated, thinking, _I wish I had my old sword in my hand_. Nothing happened, however, not at first and not after ten different ways of thinking it and couple of times trying to visualise the sword and remembering the feel of it.

"I can't do it," he admitted after nearly a minute of trying and set the practice sword down. "Maybe I got it wrong and it's not the sword that triggers it."

"Or there is a recuperation time, outside your own," Vincent answered, clicking his gauntlet's golden claws together for a moment in thought. "Try once every half an hour for the next two hours, and then once every hour - granted, that you're in private," he said. "That way we might be able to establish a time frame."

Cloud gave the man a look before stretching his arms. He wasn't about to rebuke the man's orders - Vincent was the specialist of transformations, after all. "Alright," he said. "Now I think I will head home, though. It's about dinner time."

"Of course. I will see you tomorrow after school."

In the end, it turned out that he could transform only once a day. Figuring out how to end the transformation early turned out pretty easy, after he had proven that it was the thought of his fusion sword that triggered it. All he had to do was think the sword away, and transformation went with it. Still, the energy drainage was enormous for a child, and even after a single minute of being transformed, Cloud was left feeling a little feeble - and even if the transformation only lasted one minute, he couldn't do it again for the next twenty four hours. It was once-a-day deal, even if it ended it early.

Vincent noted that it was probable that as he grew and his energy reserves broadened, the transformation would no doubt get easier to handle - and the duration would probably lengthen too, relative to how much energy he had to spare. "If you gained Mako enhancements, it might be entirely possible that one day you could maintain the transformation for hours, maybe for days," the man added, and Cloud agreed to that. SOLDIERs and such had insanely high energy reserves, and even something as draining as this wouldn't be anything for them.

That was far in the future, whichever way it would go, however. It was entirely possible he would never have Mako enhancements, and that he would have to deal with the transformation with his own natural amount of energy. It wasn't that bad, really, and for now Cloud felt secure in the knowledge that, if he needed it, he would have twenty four minutes of sheer ass-kicking each day if he needed it. It definitely eased some of his worries about the fragility of his own life.

But in the same time he wasn't going to be lulled into false sense of security just because of the ability. Few minutes of transformation a day was nothing - especially not when he was left so weak afterwards. It wouldn't help him much if he would one day be travelling, for example. Monsters attacked travellers randomly several times a day and single transformation wouldn't help him there. Not to mention about other things, wars and conflicts with plain old humans or not so plain SOLDIERs and such. No, for that he needed actual lasting strength and skill which wasn't just one-off. All he had was a trump card.

"I still have my work cut out for me," he mused, eying himself from the mirror one night. The physical training had already left a slight mark onto him, especially his arms and chest which were getting some muscle definition. But he was light-years from being able to lift his fusion sword in this body. Or any other heavy broad sword, for that matter. Not top mention about wielding them for extended periods of time in gruelling matches and dead serious battles.

He eyed himself for a moment longer, before grinning. He was still such a scrawny little brat. It would never stop amusing him. Winking at his reflection and blowing a kiss to it just for the hell of it, he turned back and sauntered back to his bedroom. Maybe he'd do some stomach crunches and squats before bed, and stretches of course. He had a lot of work to do, lot of practice to go through, lot of training to endlessly repeat, before he would stop being scrawny. Lots and lots.

Thankfully he had all the time he needed.

xx

I think like how Cloud is turning up. And Vincent too. And teenage Tseng. Kekeke.

Also, this is slash because I'm just into that sorta stuff. You're in the wrong place if you expect a fan girl on the internet, no, on _this site_ to need a logical sound idiot-proof reason supported by cannon and armchair psychology and such to throw two hawt guys together. Hell, most don't need even plot or proper grammar to do it. If you're not into it, I kindly ask you to find something else to read and not complain about it when you well enough knew it would be slash when you started reading.

My apologies for the rant any any possible grammar and canonical errors.


	6. V, to supervise an exit

Warnings; Majorly AU, with ooc Cloud, characters' deaths and violence. Eventually slash. Written with only second-hand knowledge about Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core and whatnot, so expect canonical mistakes all over the place.

**GUARD  
**_to supervise entry or exit through; keep watch at: guard the door  
_**V chapter**

Cloud was definitely no stranger to the passage of years - or the fact that some of them could go past so fast. Being a kid again made everything seem so quick, though, nearly instant. Everything seemed to be in motion, there always seemed to be something to do, these books to read, this kata to complete, this training to implement, this embarrassing social event to spring on Vincent, and so forth, and there was no quiet moment. Before he knew, a year had passed. Then another and another until, suddenly, he had graduated not only from primary school good five years too early, graduating at age of ten after skipping another year - but he also had gone into and right through high school. If it could be called that - really, it was just more of the same in the same building, but you got different papers out of it and it wasn't compulsory.

What use any of it would have, if any, he didn't know but once it was all said and done he was rather happy that he had bothered. The last time around he hadn't had really _any_ degrees, no papers from any establishment, really, all he had was his birth certificate and he had needed to get that forged because all the originals had burned in Nibelheim. While on one hand none of it really mattered - and somewhere deep inside him the hundred and eighteen year old scoffed at the notion of paperwork being of any importance - on other hand it was just… nice.

"Almost makes me feel like a normal person," he mused to Vincent, after getting his high school graduation papers - long list of somewhat high scores singing his praises.

"Now what?" Vincent asked, leaning back in his cushy armchair. In the years working as Nibelheim's sentry, he had gotten a handful of raises and managed to fix his little cottage somewhat - now it was actually somewhat liveable and it even had furniture that people could safely sit in.

Cloud shrugged, running his hand through his hair - which he had determinedly not cut in the last eight years. It was getting pretty long in the back. "Maybe I will hold a small break," he mused. He was thirteen now. "Last time around I was fourteen when I headed to Midgar," he mused. He had gone as soon as he had been old enough to get into the SOLDIER cadet program. "If I start something now, I will have to drop out."

"So you are going to try becoming a SOLDIER?" the gunman asked, giving him a steady look.

Cloud sighed, shaking his head but not in negation. He didn't really know. Though he had been semi-well informed by Tseng and Reeve - and through them by Aerith - he still didn't quite know what was happening. Aerith had been telling him to keep up with his studies which was why he had gone to high school even though he hadn't really needed to. And he knew she was going through schooling too - he didn't know what she was studying or where or anything like that, but he knew she was. After Tseng had asked his suggestions about cover stories for Aerith's bodyguards - all needing to relate to normal school environment - he had figured that it wasn't only going strong, but pretty damn important that it also went well.

Would he be joining the SOLDIER program? It had certain allure. He was sure he'd do much better this time - he was as trained as he managed, hell, he had gotten his six pack at age of nine and now he could carry _Vincent_ around the mountain and not even get winded. He also had been working as much as he could with Materia and could now cast dozen low level spells before getting woozy - four high level ones, but after that he got a bit useless really. Physical training and Materia studies and what not would not be a problem this time around - though his high reactivity Mako might be, it had been the final nail in the coffin the last time around.

But then again… Even with Hojo gone, SOLDIER program was still essentially a great big human experiment, as far as he knew anyway. And Mako treatments sucked, really really sucked, whether they were intravenous ones or prolonged stays in tubs full of Mako or whatever. Mako was always painful to take into the body and managing to avoid that, well. That would've been pretty nice. But then, on other hand, without Mako he would never regain the strength that had him wielding swords like the Buster Sword and whatnot like they weighed nothing.

Cloud sighed, leaning back on the couch. "I don't know - there are pros and cons with everything," he mused. "In the end I think the best is to be whatever Aerith needs me to be. Be it the bodyguard Tseng is always telling me to become."

Vincent shook his head, but not in disagreement. "Perhaps you should ask her," he suggested, nodding at the PHS sitting in the coffee table between them.

Cloud nodded, but made no move to get the phone. He would need to work a code for the message first - Tseng had changed the coding lately and he hadn't yet gotten the hang of it, and would need paper to work the message out. "What about you?" he asked. "Say Aerith wants me to become a SOLDIER and I head to Midgar. What will you do?"

Vincent gave him a look and hummed softly in answer. The unspoken companionship between them had stretched somewhat over the years - and though Vincent had several acquaintances around the village, closest one no doubt being Cloud's mother, the boy himself was still the only one in daily contact with the man. Cloud had tried to put a word to it - people thought that Vincent was some sort of father figure to him, rumour that Skye had started and which had stuck, but that wasn't quite right. Cloud was, after all, several decades older than the man, so if anyone among them was a father, it was him.

Of course it wasn't that, but in a strange way maybe that was _some_ of it. After Cloud had stopped being little and pathetic, and Vincent had stopped feeling the urge to hover behind his shoulder to make sure he wouldn't get killed, the dynamic had sort of accidentally shifted completely around. Be it around the town or in the Shinra mansion - or in their practice runs up and along he Nibel Mountain - it was Cloud in the front, taking on whatever was ahead. Especially around the town.

Eight years, and Vincent still didn't quite know how to handle people.

"I believe I will go to Midgar as well," the man finally said, resting his hand idly over the holstered gun. "Maybe I will be of some use."

Cloud nodded, having more or less expected it. If their relationship was based on anything, it was based onto the fact that Cloud gave Vincent something to do, be it working as his cover and paying for a PHS he himself didn't need. Though Cloud knew that if Vincent had gone to Midgar earlier he would've gotten a whole lot more to do, he had never been that surprised when the man simply hadn't. With Vincent it was also a matter of trust - and, despite how loyal Cloud might be to Aerith, Vincent had never met her and didn't know her, and thus he didn't trust her.

"Well, I guess I'll send them a text, see what they think," he mused, stretching his hands and standing up. Half an hour and some coding later, he send the scrambled message to Tseng's PHS before heading home, knowing that it would take some hours to get an answer - it was dead of the night in Midgar, after all.

"Welcome back," Ren, his mother's boyfriend, called from the kitchen when he came through the door. "How was graduation?"

"It was kind of boring, actually. Lot of sitting around and listening to longwinded speeches," Cloud answered, kicking his boots off and heading to the kitchen. The middle aged former mechanic was standing by the stove cooking, by the looks of it, stir fry. "Oh, that smells nice," Cloud enthused, leaning forward. Best thing about his mother starting to date; some of her boyfriends could actually cook. "When is it ready?"

"Any moment - but let's wait for Skye," the man said, giving him a sideways glance. "Valentine didn't feed you again, huh."

"I don't drink blood," Cloud answered, grinning and making mock-up fangs with his fingers, to which the man snorted.

"Go clean up, brat. You smell like sweat. Why you were working out on your graduation day, I don't even want to know," Ren said, shaking his head.

"Only way to get my unique manly musk," Cloud answered, sauntering out of the kitchen.

"You want to be manly? You can start by cutting off that stupid hair!" the man called after him.

"What was that? I couldn't hear anything over the sound of someone incessantly whining!" Cloud yelled back, grinning. Absently he ran his fingers over his low ponytail and shook his head. Ren wouldn't have thought long hair to be so stupid on a man if he had lived hundred years with the _same damned haircut all the time_.

Some time later his mother returned from work, eyes shining with anticipation behind, surrounded by the tell tale lines of goggles. "Show me, show me!" she demanded, holding her hands out to Cloud who, with a theatrical sigh, produced his graduation papers. She quickly read through the grades and let out a satisfied sigh. "Eight As," she said.

"Yeah, and whole lot of Bs," Ren noted. "You're losing your touch, brat. Not so much a perfect genius anymore, are you?"

Cloud waved his hand dismissively at that. High school had been harder to keep up with than primary school. "Prodigies even out eventually," he said, shrugging his shoulders. Not that he was one, but anyway… "Five years from now you won't be able to tell me from your average Joe."

"If you have that hair, I will," the man answered, and snatched a plate before filling it to the brim and slapping it in front of Cloud. "Eat up, graduation boy. You've deserved it."

Cloud grinned and dug in with gleeful flourish. Another good thing about his mother's boyfriends - some of them understood how much bodybuilders needed to eat. Again, not that he was exactly a bodybuilder, but it was the food that counted.

The answer to his question about the next step in his life came during the night, and Vincent had already decoded the message by the time Cloud made it to his cottage. "We will arrange you a place in the Junon University."

Cloud stared it for a long while with slightly wide eyes, before falling to sit back. "Well, that was… bit of a surprise," he finally said, rubbing a hand along the back of his neck and looking at the message again. Junon university - second only to the Midgar university, except it came to mechanical engineering and astrophysics and such rocked science in which case Rocket Town was the place to go. That wasn't really the surprising part - he had been expecting Tseng to ask him to come, once more, to Midgar where he would become Aerith's bodyguard or something.

"Will you go?" Vincent asked quietly.

"I ah… uh, I guess I will," Cloud answered, still a little bewildered. Junon university. That… implied lots. Junon University was, first of all, more or less a military school - or half and half, with more weight placed onto the military. So, that was sort of useful - and also a bit terrifying because university degrees were things for high standing _officers_. But also… the university would take years of his time - three in the least and whole lot more at the most. Did he have that sort of time to waste?

He didn't realise he had said that part aloud until Vincent snorted softly at him. "Turks and SOLDIER's are often recruited from the university before they manage to finish their first year," he said. "It was, at least back when I was a Turk, a common practice for the university students to finish their schooling on the job."

"Oh. Well. Hm…" Cloud frowned. He did have a year to spare, if he went by the original timeline. And he had been getting some heat from his mother for not continuing immediately into another school. This would ease the strain there - and it would be a nice and easy way to slip out of Nibelheim. It had been like tearing a band aid the last time, when he had more or less snuck away with only half a plan in mind - if he left to study in university, then it wouldn't seem like random decision but natural turn of events.

"I guess I will become a university student, then," he mused. "Um. Universities start in the fall, right?" he asked a bit uncertainly. He had never even _visited_ a university, so he had no idea how they worked. Did he leave immediately or… or what?

"Yes. And I wouldn't go before the paper work comes, if I was you," Vincent said. "If your friends will arrange you a place, I suspect they will go through semi official channels, which means that paper work will be involved."

"Right," Cloud nodded. "Wait for the paper work. Got it."

The paper work came about week later, in great big envelope. Cloud wasn't home when it arrived - being up the mountain with Vincent, hunting some Nibel wolves for practice - and when he returned his mother and Ren practically cornered him about it. "Junon university!" Skye said. "Junon university - you, you said you hadn't tried to get into anywhere! _Junon university_!"

Cloud shrugged awkwardly. "I, uh… I didn't want to say anything, in case I didn't get in -" he started, and was clomped by his overly excited mother. Hugging her back and patting her pack with a smile, Cloud felt a silent sting of gratitude that it was, indeed the Junon university rather than the Midgar one - thanks to the military aspect of the school and the fact that most of the graduates went to work with ShinRa, there were no tuition fees and instead it was rather like being recruited. It would've been whole different tune Skye would be singing, if she had been facing some twenty thousand gil tuition fees.

Later, when they managed to stop celebrating enough to actually open the letter, Cloud found much to his surprise that his courses had all been selected for him. While about half of them were more or less predictable, standard weapon training, field tactics, Materia studies and whatnot which were mostly compulsory, along with some which weren't like engineering and such - but then there were some which completely baffled him. Like psychology and medicine.

"Psychology, brat?" Ren asked with the same surprise Cloud felt.

"Yeah," Cloud agreed and snorted. "Well, change is refreshing," he noted. Tseng - or more likely Aerith - wanted him to know psychology for some reason. It should prove out to be interesting.

The news about the town prodigy being accepted to Junon university spread quickly around Nibelheim. Cloud was both congratulated and somewhat mocked for it - Junon University was a high class school, but known for producing grunts for ShinRa, and ShinRa had never been too popular in Nibelheim. Cloud didn't much care for either way, and faced the congratulations with smiles and the jeers with shrugs.

His friends took it the best - and worse. He had already lost couple of them along the way due to change of schools and such, after which he had gained a few more. Tifa had been one of his newer friends since they had been eight - and Vincent had saved the girl from her nearly suicidal attempt of climbing Mt. Nibel. She took the news of him leaving - and Vincent going with him - the worse. Whether it was because she idol-worshipped Vincent or because Cloud had the tendency of doing half of her homework for her, he didn't know, but she got fairly wibbly over it.

"It's just that… Junon is so far away," she murmured, kicking the dirt of the street and staring down to her feet.

Cloud eyed her with mixture of fondness and exasperation - she was so familiar and yet so tiny and, yeah, a bit annoying at times seeing that she was a teenage girl and not the warrior woman he had known. But he still loved her. "See if your dad would buy you a PHS, and we'll call," he suggested. "With phone bills that rocket right through the roof."

She smiled awkwardly but there was still glimmer of tears in her eyes. He sighed. "Oh, come on, Tifa," he said, wrapping her into a hug and giving her a good squeeze that made her squeal slightly. Cloud grinned. "Where's your ass kicking spirit? Chin up! It's not like I'm going to die or anything - we'll call and send letters and post cards - I'll get a camera and take stupid pictures and stuff. It'll be like I never went anywhere. I'll even force Vincent to sit still for couple ones - though who knows if his image can be captured, the vampire that he is."

That brought out a strangled chuckle from the girl, and grinning to himself Cloud lifted her off her feet and whirled her around, just to get the sniffle out of her voice. Predictably enough she screamed with surprise and then very nearly managed to kick him in the crotch, before he ran away laughing.

After the initial excitement about him being accepted to a university passed, the rest of the summer went by in something akin to normal fashion. True, Cloud's reading materials now included new books of the Psychology For Dummies sort and such just to get him started, but otherwise he went about his days normally, training and practicing. In the middle of the summer, Vincent brought his attention back to some of the material he had been studying years ago, and had finished and memorised long since.

"What about the files in the mansion?" the man asked. "They were the reason for Sephiroth's relapse, weren't they?"

"Hm," Cloud answered, and then texted a coded message to Tseng, asking if the Shinra mansion was important to their plans, or could he burn it. The answer was a somewhat vague "Not yet", which he accepted a little begrudgingly, wondering what they would need about the files. Most of them were about Sephiroth, though, so that was telling enough.

Sephiroth would be in his early twenties now. Cloud had been trying not to think of the man too much, knowing what kind of sink hole Sephiroth could be for him - it had taken him decades to get out of the habit of spending months brooding over the man. But lately he hadn't been able to help it. Though his memories about Sephiroth's earlier career and what happened with Shinra in those times were somewhat faded, he did know some things. Like, for example, that last time around Sephiroth was already known as ShinRa's Silver General at this point.

Not so much this time. If Sephiroth was the General, the newspapers had nothing to say about him.

The stalling of the Wutai War probably had something to do with it. Cloud had a feeling that it was Reeve's and Tseng's manipulations speaking there, but the Wutai war had not only started later, but as far as he could tell, it was also going slower. Last time around the war had been in full swing when Cloud had been thirteen, close to finishing - the treaties had been written just little after he had turned fourteen, if he recalled right. Not this time. What Tseng and Reeve - and Aerith - got from stalling the war, he didn't know. Wutai's defeat was inevitable - ShinRa had far too great an advantage.

But he trusted that it all had a purpose - Aerith and the others had been planning it for a long while in the Lifestream, so they provably knew what they were doing.

Shaking his head, Cloud pushed the thoughts of his old enemy away, and turned back to his books instead. He had long way to go, if he ever wanted to understand psychology.

About three weeks before the university was supposed to start, Vincent noted that they should be starting to get ready to move. "While you can probably live in the school dorms, I will need to acquire permanent accommodations," the man noted. "And, depending on the mode of transportation, we might take the time to train on the way."

"Hm. Yeah," Cloud murmured. "I think there's a meadow near by where there are some wild chocobos, I wouldn't mind spending some time riding…" he trailed away, remembering. He had really missed travelling along the years. It would be nice if they could take their time. There was also the fact that sometimes finding a boat in Costa Del Sol was hard as hell.

"Chocobos?" Vincent asked looking startled.

"You just try and find a ride that will take you from here to Costa Del Sol, and walking it will take better part of a two weeks if not more," Cloud shrugged. "Chocobos are the way to go, trust me. And don't worry, I can tame a chocobo without anything better than card board cut out of a green if I have to - that won't be a problem," he added, before sighing. "Convincing Ma that leaving early is better will be a bit hard, though."

It did take some time, but Ren was his ally in that, going on about doing what a man has to do and that boys would never grow to be men in the skirts of their mothers - before noting that Vincent would be going with Cloud and the words "cares about the brat like he was his own" might've been involved. Skye still got a bit teary eyed about it, and spend some while hugging Cloud and running her hands through his hair as if she would never see him again and had to get enough touching done now to carry her on for few years. Not that Cloud minded - he hugged her back twice as hard, for pretty much the same reasons.

Vincent, Cloud later heard, had about equal had time, but for different reasons. Mayor Lockhart had gotten used to the cosy comfort of having a constant sentry around the village. Vincent hadn't really done much but sit around in the last couple of years, only taking down monster here and there - as far as the village knew, anyway - but just to have him there had been easy for the Mayor. The man gave Vincent a bit of a hell for "leaving the village defenceless due to his selfishness" but Vincent, cool as ever, didn't seem to care in the least.

"I've cleared all the nests in the mansion years ago," the man said. "It will take years and more before anything spawns there again."

Packing for the trip didn't take much - as he and Vincent would be heading off first on foot, packing lightly was the priority. Skye promised to send him some clothing and such once they'd have a place in Junon for her to send stuff to, but for now it was only essentials - clothing, his handful of Materia and the Materia slotted belt, and his short sword that Vincent had bought to him couple of years back. What savings Cloud had, plus bit of extra from Skye and Ren, and of course food. Vincent packed even less, as he didn't need your usual human comforts, but his savings had piled a bit more along the years, as he had actually been paid.

The day of Cloud's departure was completely different this time around. Last time, there had only been his mother and Tifa there, and the goodbyes had been awkward to say at least. This time it seemed like half of the village was there, if not the entire village population - though of course, most of them were there to say good bye to Vincent and express their opinions about the whole matter. Though Cloud was far from the pariah he had used to be, it was still a bit strange that their sentry left with him just like that - to them, anyway.

Skye hugged and kissed them both, much to Vincent's stoic embarrassment, and for a while Cloud was swarmed by his friends and former school mates, all telling him to write and call and send a message every now and then. Tifa hugged him tight enough to make his spine crackle slightly, before shoving a awkwardly knitted scarf into his hands and backing away with a defiant look about her face. Grinning at her, Cloud wrapped it around his neck, and then hugged her back, spinning her around the last time.

Then, with everyone wishing them good luck and goodbye and Skye telling them to, "Take care of yourselves, damn it," through slightly quivering lips, Cloud and Vincent turned and left Nibelheim behind.

x

Cloud spent the better part of their first day luring chocobos. There were hundreds of different little tricks to do it - the easiest being to use Chocobo Lure Materia, but Cloud was too much of a elitist these days to cheat. He used the more mundane and tricky ones - that is, tracking and literally setting down trails of bread crumps and so forth. Vincent watched silently from the side, and Cloud was pretty sure the man doubted his chances of succeeding, but the boy didn't care. Once upon a future he had been The Chocobo Breeder of the planet, with capitals and awards and fairly lucrative business - not to mention about the racing.

The first chocobo he managed to lure was a barely grown one with a wounded leg, that would never be able to carry either of them. Cloud mended the chocobo's talons and fed it and then send it on it's way again. The second one was a even younger chocobo who, probably much like the first time, wasn't yet wily enough to know to avoid a too good offer. The younger chick showed some promise of becoming a good runner later in life, but right now it wouldn't be much of a use, so he fed it too and send it on it's way too.

It was nearly the night before he managed to lure the first adult chocobo - a somewhat old dark orange male that of course put a bit of a show, strutting about and clawing the ground while giving him the evil eye, before finally submitting to the smell of food. "Pity," Cloud murmured, while lulling the chocobo into a slight daze by scratching it's neck a bit so that he could safely put reigns on the bird. "It would've been better if the first one I caught had been a female - getting a second one after that would've been a cinch."

"Hm," Vincent answered, looking at him strangely. "How does a warrior like you get so good with something like… this?" he asked, waving a hand at the chocobo whom Cloud had now literally eating from his hand.

Cloud grinned faintly, thinking back to the first time he had been in Gold Saucer. "I might have a small gambling problem that factored," he admitted, shrugging his shoulders and then grinned. "I was the first one in decades to breed golden chocobos. You have no idea how long I dominated the races with them," he said, grin turning slightly ferocious as he thought back. He had made some nice amounts of money back then.

"… right," Vincent said, now looking at him like he wasn't entirely sure why he was associating with him. "Are you going to try and catch another tonight?" he asked.

"Nah. Not with the big fellow here," Cloud said, and wrapped the reigns around the chocobo's head, scratching it's neck to distract it long enough to do it. "The rest will probably avoid us for as long he's here - all the females will at least, and we don't want a male, they'll be hard to control if there's two of them. No, you'll go ahead with this one tomorrow so that I can safely catch the next one." It would've been easiest with two females, but he wasn't about to be picky. It wasn't like they could keep the birds anyway.

Their first night on the road was, thankfully, quiet aside from the chocobo that was a little restless and tried to fight against the reigns holding it tied to a tree. No monsters attack or anything which was nice. The next morning, Cloud made a awkward sort-of-saddle for the chocobo, loading it with their gear.

"You can ride, right?" he asked from Vincent, who had been eying the bird somewhat suspiciously.

"Yes. It has been a while, however," the man admitted.

"It'll be fine. Just don't let go of the reigns and dig your heels in so you wont fall. Oh, and here," the boy added, handing over some greens. "Feed him these if he starts causing trouble, it should calm him down. Oh, and don't pull at his feathers."

"Alright," the red eyed gunman sighed, accepting the veggies before turning to the chocobo - who was eying him with equal amount of suspicion. Cloud hid a smile as Vincent hoisted himself to the birds back awkwardly, making the bird wobble a little with surprise. Thankfully, the greens had made the chocobo somewhat docile and it didn't try to shake the man off.

"I'll meet you in crossing of Nibelheim and Cosmo Canyon," Cloud said, as Vincent took the reigns.

"Good luck," the red eyed man said, and soon Cloud was watching him heading off into the distance. Then, shouldering his backpack and resting his hand on the handle of his sword, he headed back into the meadow, starting to track.

He caught a beautiful yellow chocobo female in the noon, and after coaxing her into compliance through food and lot of scratching and stroking, he saddled her and then started making his way up the crossing where Vincent would be waiting. It was amazing to be on the road, riding. He had missed the feeling of wind in his hair - though he had to admit that feeling his hair, which was longer than it had ever been, whipping behind him was a new one. Still, he had definitely missed it.

When he got there, he could see from a distance that Vincent wasn't alone. The chocobo had been tied to the road sign, while the black haired gunman conversed with a small man wearing blue robes. A man… sitting on a floating green ball.

"Bugenhagen," Cloud said, unable to help himself as he slid down from the chocobo's back. The old bald man from Cosmo canyon - who looked almost exactly the same he had the day Cloud had met him in the future - turned to look at him. A smile broke out to the man's wrinkly face.

"Oh ho ho! You must be Cloud Strife," the old sage said, drifting forward. "I'm Bugenhagen, but I suspect you already know that. I've been hoping to meet you. I got the devil's luck to have drifted here when I did," Bugenhagen cracked a grin. "Must be fate."

"Sir," Cloud answered warmly, while automatically taking the offered hand and giving it a shake. Bugenhagen knew - how did that not surprise him? "It's not that I mind, sir, but how do you… did the Planet…?"

"Did the planet inform me? Sadly, no. She's been a bit too jittery since your arrival to make much sense, I'm afraid. No, young Reeve visited me couple of years back," the old man said, smiling. "I had been sensing something was amiss, of course, the Canyon was humming quite excitedly for a while there. But I didn't know specifics before Reeve brought me Aerith's message. We've been exchanging letters since, that marvellous young woman and I."

"Ah. Of course," Cloud murmured, nodding. It made perfect sense for Aerith to contact the Cosmo Canyon - he actually had to wonder why he hadn't thought of it before. Aerith couldn't find a better ally in her plans than Bugenhagen. "But even if Reeve and Aerith told you about me, that doesn't explain how you knew we'd be here today."

"Ah, well. I got some secrets of my own," Bugenhagen winked and then smiled. "I just wanted to take a good look at you, young man, and take the chance to tell me, behalf of everyone of Cosmo Canyon, how nice it is to have you here."

It was a simple thing to say, but full of meaning. Cloud smiled back, feeling a bit awkward. "You should give your gratitude to Aerith. She will be the one doing most of the work," he said. "I'm… something of a extra on this particular journey."

"Perhaps. But even heroes need heroes. Aerith will need help getting her plan through - and you, I believe, will play a key role in it. Granted, if you agree of course," the old man said, patting Cloud's shoulder. "And didn't you save the world once already? I can at least be grateful for that, can't I?"

Cloud sighed and shrugged his shoulders, his smile losing it's stiffness. "How's Nanaki?" he asked, just to change the subject.

"Aerith asked that too. Unfortunately, he is an insufferable little brat at the moment - but he'll learn," Bugenhagen laughed. "Ah, well. I won't be keeping you - you have long way ahead of you and a new future to make. Do write me a letter or two sometime, won't you, young man? Keep this old man informed. Cosmo Canyon might feel the turn of the planet, but it's harder to keep track on smaller things from there, as it's fairly far away."

"I'll see what I can do, sir," Cloud promised, wondering what the man meant about key role, but knowing better than to ask. If the man didn't feel like saying it on his own volition, asking wouldn't do much good. And knowing Aerith, she wanted to surprise him with it, whatever it was.

"Oh, and before I go," Bugenhagen said, turning back to Cloud. "Something the Planet wants you to know. I might be getting it a bit wrong but, here goes. In the future you won something fair and square. Something of hers. Even time can't take that something away."

"What?" Cloud asked, now confused.

Bugenhagen shrugged, flapping his arms a little and bobbing up and down in the air slightly. "Oh hoh, don't ask me. I'm just the messenger. And now I shall be off. Good travelling, boys. Good hunting."

Cloud shook his head slightly, as the old man turned and begun to float away, humming slightly as he went. How Bugenhagen had crossed all the distance from Cosmo Canyon and how he expected to get back without getting into trouble, Cloud didn't know, but he wasn't too worried. The old man had his ways.

"Interesting old man," Vincent noted, unwrapping the reigns of the chocobo from the road sign, having to go around to do it because of the way the chocobo was caning it's neck towards the one Cloud had been riding.

"Very much so, yeah," Cloud agreed and narrowed his eyes. "Something I won from the Planet," he murmured to himself. "Hm… could he mean my sword?" he had gotten the original material from the defeating the ULTIMA Weapon, the planet's ultimate defence mechanism - right after Holy. "I suppose that could explain some things, but not the transformations. That doesn't make sense."

"Perhaps they're linked," Vincent suggested while mounting. "We best be off if we want to reach Costa Del Sol anytime soon."

"Yeah, you're right," Cloud sighed. Shaking his head he turned to mount as well, patting the chocobo's neck as he did. He'd think about it later. "Let's go."

Vincent grunted in answer, and soon they were on their way again.

x

It took four days of riding to reach Costa Del Sol. By the time they did, Cloud was starting to feel glad that they didn't have to ride chocobos any longer - he had forgotten how much it took to get used to it, and what pain saddle blisters could be. Vincent, of course, said nothing about it so Cloud couldn't really say whether the man had suffered any discomfort on the way, but Cloud really couldn't have been bothered to ask.

After releasing the chocobos back into the wild, they entered the town. In the years at Nibelheim, Cloud had almost forgotten about it - but Costa Del Sol was so… sunny. Everything there seemed to be yellow from the sand to the buildings, even the streets were all pawed with yellow stone. Cheeriest place on the planet, it was - beating Gold Saucer by wide margin because the amusement park had rather dark underbelly that the coastal town lacked.

"Alright. Let's stop by the harbour, see if there's any boats heading east," the blond said after taking a moment to stretch his slightly stiffened legs.

"Let's," Vincent agreed, tugging at the collar of his red cape. "Then a bath."

Cloud grinned. That was as far Vincent would ever go to admit that he felt filthy - even after chocobo riding for four days straight. Shaking his head, the thirteen year old boy clapped the black haired man on the shoulder, before heading towards the town and then the harbour. As they approached the docks, he breathed in the air. It had been a while since he had smelled the ocean. It was pretty nice.

They were in luck - there were two pleasure cruisers in the harbour and one of them had some third class seats left. The seats were fairly expensive and they had only the bare necessities available, but it was definitely better than nothing and it wasn't like they were boarding the ship for fun.

After Vincent had bought two tickers for them, they made a beeline for the inn, renting a room and then taking turns washing up - both taking a little more time than necessary, but then again they had been riding on chocobos for five days. And there had been pouring rain on the third day to boot. Cloud like the birds, he really did, but the smell of wet feathers definitely wasn't his favourite scent.

While brushing his hair later, Cloud sat by the window sill, staring out and towards the wide expand of golden sand. He had no idea why, but every time he had passed through the town, he had always had the strangest urge to snatch a parasol and give it a swing. Shaking his head, he glanced at Vincent who was sitting on one of the beds, carefully cleaning his gauntlet. Cloud's eyes lingered for a moment on man's the badly scarred left hand, before he turned to look away, knowing how annoying staring could be.

Looking outside again, he had to wonder how long it would take before he could visit the place again. Costa Del Sol had never been that high in his list of important places to see, but once he would enter Junon University - one of _ShinRa's_ universities - it would be unlikely that he would get the chance to just… visit places. "Have you ever been to Costa Del Sol?" he asked thoughtfully.

"Hm. Yes. Long time ago," Vincent admitted.

Cloud nodded, thinking back to the future. Costa Del Sol was one of the few places on the planet that had never changed. It hadn't either grown or shrank and changed it's colour scheme. Really, the place had been about the same hundred years into the future, as it was now. "I've been here a lot of times. I even owned a villa here," the boy said thoughtfully. "I don't know why I never stayed." The place certainly beat some of the places where he had lived.

"Too much good in it," the gunman answered. "There's a limit to how much joy a man can take."

The boy grinned at that, shaking his head with amusement. "I guess you're right," he answered and after managing to get the tangles out of his hair, he tied it to the back of his neck to it's usual low ponytail. "Little bit of good is good for the soul though," he said, nodding to himself. He had the chance to visit the place now, with no knowledge when the next time would be. It would be stupid to waste it. "So, you know what? I'm going to go down to the beach and wave a parasol around a little."

"… what?" Vincent asked with confusion, glancing up from the gauntlet.

"I don't know. I've had that urge for about hundred years now, but I never did it. It always seemed such a stupid thing, childish thing, but I don't care anymore. I want to swing a parasol around, so I'm going to swing a parasol around, and that's that," Cloud said, nodding determinately, and jumping down from the window sill. "You only live once, you know."

"Most people do," Vincent agreed, shaking his head and turning back to his work, apparently figuring it was best to ignore him. "Have fun."

"Oh, I will," Cloud grinned, cracking his knuckles. "I'm going to have the time of my life."

And, strangely enough, he kind of did.

xx

And so chibi Cloud grew up. Kinda abrupt and bit of a pity, but as much fun as chibi Cloud was, it was time to move on with the plot. Sorta.

Still slash.

My apologies for possible grammar errors.


	7. VI, troops of a sovereign

Warnings; Majorly AU, with ooc Cloud, characters' deaths and violence. Eventually slash. Written with only second-hand knowledge about Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core and whatnot, so expect canonical mistakes all over the place.

**GUARD  
**_troops attached to the person of the sovereign  
_**VI chapter**

After the trip over the sea, which had been fairly enjoyable despite the less than stellar accommodations, Cloud and Vincent arrived at the eastern continent. Junon back in the future had grown out of it's limits long ago, not to mention about the dismantling of everything to do with the Sister Ray, so the Junon of Cloud's memories and the one the pleasure cruise finally docked at were two completely different cities. Not only were they very different, this one being smaller and tighter than the one of the future, but by the looks of it the Sister Ray wasn't even finished yet.

"What is _that_?" Vincent asked, as they stepped out to the docks, looking up to the enormous cannon barrel that shed a shadow over the city. Cloud hummed softly and shrugged before explaining. It was one of the few events of the past he had never forgotten - there was some things you just didn't forget and effin' huge cannon strapped on top of Midgar was one of them.

"Now what shall we do?" the boy asked, lifting his backpack to one shoulder and resting his hand on the handle of his sword - more to make sure it wouldn't get in the way than any other reason. He would never get used to carrying a sword as it side, rather than his back. "Do you want to start working on your accommodations first, or shall we look around?"

"Let's… gather intel," Vincent said with one uneasy glance up at the cannon and then stepped forward, Cloud following him with a smile and shake of his head. Vincent's way of saying _let's gawk like tourists_, except of course the man never would gawk - he would glance sidelong and never be noticed doing it.

The size of the city wasn't the only difference, Cloud soon noticed. The place was also newer than he quite remembered - it hadn't yet acquired that dark metallic tint that all ShinRa's monstrous creations eventually did, and instead it shone in the sunlight as if someone had been polishing it little while ago. The place was also livelier - there were people out on the odd, terraced streets, there even _street stalls_ here and there along the way. There hadn't been any, Cloud recalled, when he had been there the first time. The last time he had crossed through Junon on his way to Midgar and to the SOLDIER, the place had already hunched his back thanks to the war with Wutai.

After some time spend looking, Cloud decided to poke his head to the University and see if there was anyone there to possibly give him directions. He figured he could stay with Vincent easily enough of it was too early - and he was, about two weeks too early - but it couldn't hurt to ask. To his surprise, the offices of the University, which stood just next to the ShinRa's military headquarters, weren't only open, but they were bustling with people.

"I'm sorry, my dear. It's the last day of the training for the SOLDIER cadets, it's a bit mad," the secretary said, after Cloud finally managed to push his way to the front. "What can I do for you?" she asked, and then took a closer look at Cloud. "My dear, aren't you a bit young to be here?"

Surrounded by hulking twenty year olds, thirteen year old little blond kid probably did stand out a little. Cloud ignored that and just grinned winningly at the woman. "I'm already enrolled in, I'm supposed to start studying here in two weeks, but I got here a bit early and I was wondering if I could get some info here?" he said quickly, before the brutish looking young man behind him could push him aside.

"Oh. I see. Your name?" the woman asked, turning to her computer. Cloud told her his name, and immediately her expression lightened up.

"Oh, you're our little genius from west, aren't you? Just a moment," she said, and while waiting for her to print the files, Cloud wondered if he should be surprised or not that she knew him. Well, thirteen year old enrolling into university, he supposed that had to be a bit special for the school.

Soon she turned back to him, with wad of papers in her hand, after jotting down her signature into few of them, and slapping a stamp onto it. "Here you go, your instructions and the papers you need to give to the dorm adjutant. I printed a map of the campus area too, along with the schedule of your first day. Just show this paper," she pointed at the topmost one. "At the dorms, and they'll arrange you a room."

"It's okay even though I'm two weeks early?" Cloud asked, frowning.

"It's perfectly fine. Ask for the weekly list from the dorms if you get bored - there's always some lectures and week-long courses that you can sign up into for free. The sword and gun practices are always popular, though you can't go miss by attending to the parade classes," the secretary said, winking at him. "Now, is there anything else you need, dear?"

"Nah, I think this is enough," Cloud nodded and grinned at the woman. "Thank you ma'am."

"You're welcome, dear. Now off you go," she said, and turned to the brutish looking young man who had been glowering behind Cloud. The time travelled quickly ducked around the young man and then out of the office, before heading outside again, where Vincent was waiting for him.

"Do you think you need any help finding a place to rent apartment?" Cloud asked after looking through the files and explaining what had happened to the man. "Because I was thinking I could pop into the dorms and see if I can find a place to throw my stuff in - but I don't know if I'm permitted to leave afterwards. If it's like being a soldier cadet, then I'm not going to be allowed to go anywhere."

"I doubt it is - you're a student, not a recruit. But in any case, I would prefer you to come with me for now," the man said. "We need to buy you your own PHS, and I would… prefer that you had some potions and such with you."

Cloud perked up and quickly hid the papers into his backpack. He wasn't that sure if he would need potions and such, but his own PHS would definitely be useful. And if it would ease the gunman's mind, he could carry a potion or two around, sure. "Alright, let's go," he said grinning.

They spent nearly hour looking for electronics store, where Vincent coolly pretended to be Cloud's guardian as they got the PHS. Cloud didn't turn it on yet - not before he could work a little electronic magic on it to make it harder to trace - but that didn't stop him from turning it in his hands and marvelling it. "I'll need to visit electronic hardware store," he said after a moment, pushing the thing into his pocket.

"Of course," Vincent agreed, and after visiting a pharmacy to get the potions Vincent wanted him to have, they went to find one.

It was later afternoon, by the time they separated, Vincent to see if he could find a place to stay, and Cloud heading for university dorms. It turned out to be a bit of a task - because there were about five different dorm buildings for different aged students and such, plus there were the barracks for the military students. Cloud ended up visiting three wrong ones before finding the right one where the offices of the dorm adjutant were.

The person in charge of the dorms was a man - and Cloud could immediately tell why he was called adjutant, rather than manager or anything else. The man was military through and through, right down to the haircut - he even wore the uniform of a ShinRa officer. And Cloud, apparently, made no good impression on him when he walked in.

Figuring that being succinct would be best, Cloud said nothing and simply handed the papers to the man who glowered back at him before taking them. The look on his face didn't change in the slightest, though Cloud could tell his eyes lingered on his name for a moment. "So," the man finally said. "You're the child genius we've been hearing about. The one that gets… special privileges."

"I wouldn't know anything about that, sir," Cloud answered, falling back to half forgotten forms from the time he had been an infantry man. "I'm just here to learn, sir."

Something about the stiffness about the man's face eased at the words, but his expression didn't change. "You're going to get your ass kicked, boy," he said gruffly, looking down at Cloud and shaking his head before noting the sword at Cloud's hip. "Well, personal weapons are allowed. However, bravado or pretence won't help you here," he added, snorting. "This is what used to be theJunonMilitaryAcademy. Do you know what that means?"

"Lots of tough guys, sir," Cloud answered calmly.

"You think you can handle that, boy?"

Cloud broke out to grin. "We'll find out, won't we, sir?" he said. "Can I have my dorm assignment now, sir?"

The adjutant snorted. "Maybe you're not as hopeless as I feared," he said, before turning to his desk and taking out a note pad. "You're marked down for a single room - for obvious reasons. Be grateful, boy. Students here can usually only get single rooms after one full year's stay at the school, if even then." He dropped the pad, and took out keys, before opening a metallic closet in the back, where apparently all the keys of the dorms were kept. "Here. Room twelve in the second floor, left side. Think you can find it?"

"I am adept at navigating buildings, yes, sir," Cloud answered dryly, shaking his head. "The secretary at the university told me something about weekly list and that I should ask about it from you, sir."

"It's in the back of the waiting room, on the message board," the adjutant said, waving one meaty hand at Cloud. "Everything's that coming will be on that. Now get out of my office."

"Yes, sir, thank you, sir," Cloud nodded, and then stepped out and to check the notice board. After checking the upcoming lessons - most of seemed boring, except for the non-compulsory weapons training that, apparently, happened daily before and after the usual university classes. After pressing the time and place to his memory, Cloud turned to head out to find his room.

It ended up being a small pimple of a room, with just enough space for a bed and a desk. It did, however have it's own kitchenette and toilet. "Special privileges indeed," he murmured, grinning widely. He had thought he'd just get a lower bunk in room of six smelly guys or something, and every goddamn thing had to be shared. This, though he still had to use the communal showers, was _awesome_. Being a child genius definitely had its perks, it seemed.

Dropping his things onto the bed, Cloud poked around a bit, before sighing with realisation. He should've brought his own sheets and such - not to mention about kitchenware and food. "I wonder if Vincent would be willing to go and buy me some," he mused, before going about making himself home in his new room.

x

After spending couple of hours working to make his phone secure, he called Vincent about the problem of needing, well, everything. Vincent promised to look into it before informed him that he had managed to find accommodations in the old Junon, that they weren't stellar but would do for now. "I will see about finding work later," the man added, and after a while he hung up.

Next Cloud send a message to his mother, not entirely sure what time it was in Nibelheim but not wanting to wake her if it was late. After informing her of his new address and how things were going, he started to type another message - this one to Tseng, simply informing him that he and Vincent had arrived at Junon - and that Vincent could use a job, if the man had anything… covert to spare.

Then he changed his clothes into his usual training outfit, and went to find the gym - as it seemed that each dorm had one in it's basement. It turned out to be very interesting endeavour. The place was half full of the same sort of hulking young men Cloud had seen in the university officers, only these ones were wearing casual clothes and there were actually couple of women thrown into the mix. And all of them, upon seeing Cloud enter, stared.

"What the hell? Who let the squirt in?" one of the young men, one with bright red hair and long way to go if he wanted to get rid of the padding around his stomach, asked.

"The squirt has a key," Cloud answered, jingling his keys at them, before ignoring them and instead turning his attention to the machines of the gym. Most of them were various different variations of weight lifting, with things like treadmills and exercise bikes thrown in. After a moment of considering them, Cloud shook his head and turned to the training mat instead, ignoring the snicker coming from one of the bodybuilders. Then, like he usually did, he started to stretch. And then stretch. And finally _stretch_.

"Not bad," someone said in the back, as Cloud folded his body neatly in half, hugging his straight knees to his chest.

"Hey, brat, can you do a hand stand?" someone asked, sniggering.

"Tch," Cloud answered, glancing at the man. "Can you?"

"I can walk on my hands, no problem," the man answered with a scoff.

Cloud grinned, deciding to indulge old, old urges to show off by pressing his palms to the mat and then kicking himself up to a handstand. "Bet you I can stay up longer," he said, telling himself sternly that he wasn't being stupid. He was supposed to be a kid and wasn't showing off something kid things? So really, he was only cementing his disguise.

It did end up being a bit of a competition - and though the man did give him a good run for his money, Cloud won. It was pretty hard not to - the man had probably good hundred pounds worth more weight than Cloud did, so Cloud had easier time of it than the his opponent did. Still, it was fun - and it was nice and easy way make himself taken seriously - it was hard to scoff at someone who could walk around the room on and even do some push ups while standing on their hands, after all. The others laughed at him, sure, but it was still impressive feat.

What followed, though, was even more fun. Cloud had intended to test the limits of his physical strength in the gym and, after seeing him perform, the others in the gym seemed to share the idea. "Come on, monkey boy, I wanna see how much you lift," one of the girls said, ushering Cloud to the bench pressing corner where one man was already setting the weights. Cloud lay down happily while one of the men stepped behind him to be the spotter.

The results were nothing impressive - at least not in Cloud's opinion. In his future form, there wouldn't have been enough weighs in the entire gym for it to be too much for him to lift - hell, he probably could've lifted the entire gym itself and not even get winded. His body as it was now, even though he had spent eight _years_ training it, was nowhere near that. But, for a thirteen year old… he did pretty well.

"Not bad, monkey boy," his spotter said, after Cloud ended his set and sat up again. "Not bad at all. You gonna be regular here?"

"Yeah," Cloud agreed, stretching his arms a little to avoid getting stiff later. "I'm starting my first year at the university in two weeks," he added. "I'm going to try and work out as much as I can while I'm here - I haven't had access to real gym before so I'm going to take as must advantage out of it as I can."

"That's the spirit," the spotter nodded, patting his shoulder with one heavy hand. "So, you some sort of kid genius then?"

And just like that, Cloud became an accepted regular at the gym.

x

Soon Cloud was more or less fully settled in his room - with sheets and frying pans and everything, after Vincent had kindly done some shopping for him. Tseng sent him Aerith's congratulations soon after, as well as her wishes for good luck, and while sending back a message promising to study hard, Cloud mused that he might just end up liking university life.

The next day he attended the weapons training - which, to his glee, turned out to be divided to two classes, sword and gun practice. It turned out to be even more interesting than his first visit to the gym - because it took practically no less than three second for the cockiest students to spot him, and immediately single him out. While the teacher, looking like he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with a thirteen year old kid in class made of mostly young adults, tried to find him a suitable sparring partner, one of the other students sauntered forward, offering to "show the kid the ropes."

While eying the eighteen year old that had offered to be his opponent and trying to get a feel of the wooden practice sword, Cloud was for a moment struck by how much similar it was, to what it had been like when he had entered the SOLDIER cadet program. He had been instantly singled out there too by the tough guys. Was there something in him that told people to bully him? Well, maybe. Sephiroth had certainly taken note of it. Did he have a baby face or something? Or was it his hair? His eyes?

"You're wide open," his opponent noted, and then attacked. Cloud blinked at him and then easily stepped aside, watching calmly as the young man stumbled a little.

"Bad form. You swing too much and too wide - you use too much your shoulder, your arm is too tense, too stiff," he noted thoughtfully. "I suppose it's better than just swinging without any support, but frankly, you're doing even that wrong - and your grip is off. I know people say power of the swing has to come from your body, but you use your hand to aim, not just to hold the sword. And when swinging you are supposed to harness the momentum, guide it and direct it, not let it go where it wants to."

"What?" the would be bully asked, blinking.

"Here," Cloud said, and took a stance. "Like this. See?" he patted his upper arm. "Tense, but still relaxed. I can attack and I can guard," he demonstrated both, "while keeping my balance and both implementing and savouring my strength. Sword fighting takes stamina, you will only get yourself killed by wasting it in useless moves and wasteful gestures. Now, swing," he demonstrated again. "Momentum aimed at the impact point, not at the handle. Keep your wrist strong, but loose - if you need to change attack mid swing, you won't be able to do that if your wrist is locked. Don't just hold the sword - use it, direct it. It's a tool meant to be swung, not a dead weight. Guide the sword don't let it guide you - you'll only lose your balance unless you know what you're doing."

His would be bully stared at him wide eyed, mouth open. "Do it!" Cloud snapped, and quickly the elder student rushed to mimic his position. "Don't put your elbow down. Tense, not frigid. Don't clench your fingers like that, you're doing no one favours by turning your fingers numb. Posture - spread your feet, bent a little. Fighting is dynamic, remember that, you're not a statue." Cloud snapped again and again, until the wide eyed would've bully was in better stance. "Better. Now, guard your left," the blond ordered - and attacked.

He didn't realise that half of the class was staring at them, until he had already managed to teach his would be bully how to guard properly, and how to swing efficiently. The teacher, who by the looks of him wasn't really swords man himself and only knew the basics of using a blade, cleared his throat when Cloud stopped to give his would be bully time to breath. "I see you have some experience with swords, boy," he said.

"Eight years of training, sir," Cloud nodded. Plus about hundred.

The man shook his head. "This class isn't place for you - this is just the basics for beginners. You need to go to the advanced classes."

"But - but he's teaching me!" Cloud's would be bully objected. "Did you _see_ me? That was amazing!"

The teacher smiled faintly at that before looking at Cloud. "I'll let the advanced class's teacher know about you. Do you have a PHS? He can mail you the specifics - it's a class you need to be admitted to, so you won't find a schedule for it anywhere."

"I have PHS and I would appreciate it, sir," Cloud nodded, giving his would-be-bully a smile. "Sorry," he said. "I suppose could tutor you. For a fee."

"Gimme your number too, then," the elder student said, and somewhere behind Cloud another student quickly piped in, "Me too!" and suddenly Cloud had a handful of customers. While the teacher shook his head and wrote down Cloud's PHS number, the blond boy promised the other students that, if he had time, he could give some sessions here and there if it was permitted - but he needed to see what his schedule at the school would be like, first.

It was so different from what it had been like last time. Of course the situation was entirely different and students in the university, while majority of them were aiming to become ShinRa employees, weren't as aggressive as military recruits tended to be, so that eased things there. The SOLDIER cadet program was practically engineered to have majority of it's recruits be bullies - that was what the recruiters had been looking for, after all, brutish strength and aggressive personalities. But still. It was so easy now to side step the whole bullying thing that had ruined his teenage years so badly.

Skill and experience made a huge difference, and all he had to do was demonstrate that once and people thought better of the whole thing. Cloud wasn't entirely sure what kind of image he was giving to the world - blond thirteen year old genius with mad sword skills, that had to be pretty weird - but apparently it was pretty effective. After the first sword lesson no one tried to have a go at him again - though it helped that those who made it to the advanced sword lessons were too driven to be better to bother with such things.

It was strange, but he kind of regretted that. The devil inside him would've just _loved_ to face his old bullies with the knowledge and strength he had now, even if it was so much lesser than it had been in the future. While childish as hell, it would've been so sweet.

While Cloud settled into a schedule of starting his mornings at the gym and spending the day reading before taking part at the sword lessons, waiting for the actual school to start, Vincent made himself comfortable in Junon. Couple of days after Cloud had asked Tseng if he had anything that Vincent could do, the gunman informed him that Tseng had visited him, and hired him to collect intel around Junon.

"I am to keep track, as much as I can, of the one who didn't come with you," the former Turk informed him over the phone, sounding like he wasn't entirely sure what to think.

"I thought he was already watched," Cloud answered, thinking about Rufus Shinra. Yeah, hadn't the man spent most of his life in Junon, rather than in Midgar?

"He is, but apparently not by anyone to trust," Vincent answered and was quiet for a moment. "Did you arrange this?" he finally asked.

"Wouldn't want you to be bored, my friend," the boy grinned. "I'm sure you can decline the baby sitting duty if you want to."

"If I want to," Vincent agreed, and hung up. Cloud grinned at his PHS a little wider. It would do some good for the man to have stuff to preoccupy himself with.

Couple of hours after Vincent's phone call, Cloud got another coded message from Tseng. He had been expecting it, really, after knowing the man had visited Vincent, so he wasn't too surprised when the message told him to come to the scenery viewing platform of Junon, which was in one of the highest levels of the city. Getting there took some time - there was some six levels between the university and the highest levels, and that was a lot of stairs for someone with no elevator pass or money to waste. It made Cloud decide to make it his new jogging route - it was certainly taxing enough.

When he made to the viewing platform, where balcony-like street was decorated by statues and fountains and flowers growing in neat designated holes, Tseng wasn't there. Frowning, Cloud stretched his legs while looking around for any sight of the man. But no, only people on the terrace was a man with a cart selling snacks, a couple happily whispering to each other near the other end of the viewing platform, and a lone woman, leaning to the baluster not far form Cloud.

It wasn't at all like Tseng to make a appointment - and then fail to show. The man was punctual to the point of being irritating at times. Cloud thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. Well, maybe he had gotten caught up with something - it happened to the best of people. It wasn't like he didn't have the time to wait - and he had to admit, the view was spectacular.

As he approached the metal baluster to take a look down to the terraced city, the dark haired woman glanced at him. Cloud grinned apologetically, hoping he hadn't bothered her - when something stopped him on his tracks. For a long while he stared at the woman - taking in the elegantly styled dark hair, the professional looking make up, the fine dress - and the tilak in the middle of the woman's forehead.

"Holy crap," Cloud breathed, taking a step back. Then he had to bite his knuckles to stop himself from bursting out to laughter. "Looking good there, Tseng!"

"Kindly quiet down," the Turk snapped, throwing a carefully curled lock of hair behind his shoulder in such a feminine move that Cloud nearly lost it. "I am in disguise for a reason."

"Wait, wait, wait. Let me guess - Aerith came up with that get up," Cloud said, looking away and forcing the desperate to urge to howl with laughter back, biting his lip to stop his shoulders from shaking. Oh, sweet, sweet justice, seeing someone else being forced to her sneaky wiles. "Well, there's no question about who you work for these days," he had to say, sniggering slightly.

Tseng sighed, folding his hands. "At least you know how to act your apparent age, it seems," he muttered, with a tick under his eye as Cloud desperately tried to surprises his mirth. "Yes, yes, it is quite amusing. Can now you please gather yourself?"

"Yes, sorry. Give me a moment," the blond answered, before making the mistake of glancing up at the elder man - and was then forced to bite his lip again. "Where's a camera when you need one?" he bemoaned, to which Tseng just sighed, rolling his eyes. Cloud sniggered again, before finally managing to stomp the mirth down. He really shouldn't have laughed - he knew exactly what Tseng must've been feeling like. And Tseng didn't even have anyone's life on the line.

"So," Cloud started, wiping a stray tear of laughter from the corner of his eye. "What's the reason you want me here? Why Junon, and not Midgar?"

"Finally," the Turk sighed. "We want you in a position from which Aerith can... draw you into the fold with some plausibility," he said. "We did consider that you would come straight to Midgar, which would have been easier, but considering your background Junon seemed like the safer option."

"Care to explain what that's supposed to mean?" Cloud asked, frowning.

"Your family doesn't have the funding necessary to get you admitted to the Midgar university," Tseng shrugged. "The Junon university on other hand covers all the fees of it's students, so it seemed like a natural place a… middle class family would send their genius son to."

"You've been checking my school records," the boy noted, not particularly surprised.

"Aerith wanted to keep informed of your process, so we kept an eye on it. I have to congratulate you for that, by the way. From SOLDIER drop out to the countryside prodigy," Tseng noted with slight smirk, but it wasn't exactly mockery. "It was a brusque move, but one that will make things easier for us in the long run."

"Huh," Cloud murmured, leaning his elbows to the baluster and looking at the elder male from the corner of his eye. "It was bit of an accident, really, but whatever. So, me being a… prodigy helps with drawing me into the, uh, fold?"

"It will be more believable for one child genius to be drawn to another - if you had been just average boy from far off Nibelheim, we would've never been able to arrange your and Aerith's public meeting naturally - not unless you became a Turk and got assigned as her bodyguard, in any case."

"One child genius drawn… you mean Aerith's also…?" Cloud trailed away and really, he should've seen it coming.

"She's a bit ahead of you - started at Midgar university at age of ten," Tseng smiled. "Having been ShinRa's Science Department's… guest for six years helped to make it credible. She is quite well known, in some circles. She has even published some papers in certain journals." The man trailed away, shaking his head. "What we plan, from here on, is for you to make yourself known as another prodigy - not one of her calibre, perhaps, but one nonetheless. Aerith will hear of you and become interested in you, eventually, and you will open lines of communication through emails. Eventually, you will transfer to work with her, in Midgar university.

"Oh," Cloud murmured. Well, that was… he wasn't quite sure what, but it certainly was. "And then what?"

Tseng shook his head. "That still remains to see. We have been giving some leeway to our plans lately, since we have been forced to compensate in certain aspects. It will probably better that she tells you, eventually. She's the one who knows the best."

"Yeah, she probably is," Cloud nodded, and turned to look at the sea. The sun was starting to set - and Junon had the prime view to some incredible sunsets. "I'll be looking forward to that, then," he said. "Why the psychology, though?" he asked.

"Aerith demanded it - I do not know the motivations behind the request," Tseng admitted. "But I suggest you take heed of it."

"I will," the teen promised, and stretched his arms. "So, what else has been going on?" he asked. "You've made some changes. Things are a bit amiss here and there. Wutai War, for one."

"Indeed," Tseng agreed. "Hojo's death had some unforeseen side effects. I suppose I should take some of the blame there - I did dig up lot of skeletons from his closest after he died. All his projects were put under review after that - including the SOLDIER program. And of course, the project S."

Cloud froze a little at that before turning to look at the man. "Sephiroth?" he asked quietly.

"Hm. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were concerned for his well being," Tseng said, lifting a single carefully shaped eyebrow at him. "He is alive - and within the SOLDIER program, as there is no other place to really put him. However, due to some things that came into light during the investigation to Hojo's doings and goings, it is unlikely that Sephiroth will ever gain the position of a General. Currently he is a Lieutenant and at best he will make a Colonel, but it will take him some time, as Shinra no longer hands out ranks according to physical strength or how much Mako you have in your blood."

"You're kidding me," Cloud breathed. Sephiroth - not a General? That was like saying that gravity wasn't real.

"I assure you, I am not," Tseng smiled. "Currently, ShinRa is trying to hide it, but the as of about a year ago, the SOLDIER program has been frozen due to various reasons, malpractice and flawed methods being the lesser reasons and chronic schizophrenia and PTSD in majority of the subjects being the more pressing ones. It is the weightiest reason as to why the Wutai war has been stalled. President Shinra doesn't feel comfortable with going into war, with most of the elite members of his army being diagnosed with various mental disorders."

"You're _kidding_ me," Cloud repeated, this time with little more incredulity. Why hadn't he ever heard of any of this?

"Well, I admit that through various channels I did convince the President that going to the war would be bad business and lose him more money that he'd gain," Tseng admitted. "But no, I am not kidding. Currently the ShinRa's Science Department is in shambles - and nothing it has produced in last, say, twenty years is trusted as far as it can be thrown. Of course, Tuesti and myself have done all we can to cultivate that belief, so, even experiments that went perfectly are now frowned upon within the company."

"So you're basically… taking out ShinRa's base of power?" Cloud asked. "What next, you're going to go after Scarlet and the weapon's department?"

"Not quite yet. No, we're simply paving the way for Aerith to take over," Tseng smiled, the expression sharp and nearly ferocious despite the makeup softening his face. "If everything goes according to plan, in less than two years she will take the helm of ShinRa's Science Department as it's Chief Scientist."

x

The next day, Cloud made his way to the university library, intending to find out exactly what were the papers that Aerith had published. He had spent the entire last night and most of the morning wondering about the whole thing, about the idea of Aerith being a _scientist_, until he hadn't been able to take it anymore. He needed more proof. He needed to see what she had written.

As he had no idea what kid of scientific journals she might've written in or anything like that, he turned to the library staff for help - and thus got his next shocking bit of information even before he got his hands onto any of the actual texts.

"Aerith Gainsborough?" the library attendant asked, frowning thoughtfully. "I don't think I've ever heard of her. Aerith Faremis, sure, but not Gainsborough. Let me do a search for you, see if I can find anything…"

"No," Cloud answered, shaking himself out of the shock. "I must've gotten the name wrong. If you can tell me what journals Aerith Faremis might've written in, I'd be grateful."

There was a few - with first search the woman found three, and with second she found two more. Apparently Aerith _Faremis_ had written in _Science Today_, in _Midgar Explorer_ and _ShinRa Applied Science_, with subjects that varied from the uses of Mako on humans to the Planet Source Theory - which was apparently another name for the concept of Lifestream - and she had even written a history analysis on something called Ancient Guardians.

Cloud ended up staying all day in the library, just reading. It was strange - he couldn't understand more than about half of what was being said in the papers and yet, somehow, he could _feel_ it hundred percent and any suspicion he had of Aerith Faremis not being the Aerith he knew vanished. Even if it was printed in strict and impersonal font and no doubt also edited heavily, it was Aerith's hand writing through and through. For a moment he actually wondered if the ink it had been printed in was green and glowing with the energy of the Lifestream.

It… made a lot of things clear. Years earlier he had been wondering what Aerith's plan was - thinking that if they wanted to change ShinRa, they would have to change the science of ShinRa. He hadn't realised then how right he was. That was, apparently, _exactly_ what Aerith was going to do. And somehow, even if it wasn't that far from what he had been thinking was going on, it was so much more massive at the same time. Aerith was really aiming to become the head scientist at Shinra - and Cloud didn't doubt in the least if she could.

But while it explained some things, it also revealed lot of mysteries. Why Faremis, and not Gainsborough? And how had Aerith learned all things? Of course, her access to the planet made everything she wrote resound with deep wisdom, but still. The scientific jargon was like that of a person who had been raised to speak it, and she obviously knew what she was talking about in all the levels she touched the subject matter. The easy way her words made it believable, that was Aerith through and through, but the hard science… that wasn't.

Had the woman he had once known and respected - and now did probably more than ever - really learned this much in the eight years they had been in the past? Or…

No, of course. Fifty years in the Lifestream, planning for their last hurrah. In the Lifestream with who knew how many scientists, Bugenhagen among them and, of course, Gast Faremis himself, Aerith's father - the scientist that Hojo had had to kill to get his position in the company. Aerith had been the priority on their time travelling mission for a damn good reason, Cloud realised - and the fact that she was the last ancient was, apparently, only part of it.

"Of course," he whispered to himself, staring down to the magazine as he realised why Faremis and not Gainsborough. Gast Faremis was a name the scientific community knew and remembered. Aerith Gainsborough would've been just a genius girl with lot of ideas. Aerith Faremis on other hand was the genius daughter of a genius scientist and immediately more trustworthy and believable.

Damn, they had _really_ planned all of it well.

His hand shaking slightly, Cloud ran his fingers through his hair. Somewhere in the back of his head he had doubted the whole thing, he now realised. He had embraced the chance and the hope and trusted that Aerith had a plan, but it had all been so massive that he had doubted that somewhere there would be a flaw in the plan, and everything would collapse - and maybe, just maybe, everything would fall back to it's original tracks and Nibelheim would burn and meteor nearly fall.

He was a _simpleton_.

Fifty years of planning with no doubt almost all the people of the Lifestream pitching in. Contingency plans on top of contingency plans. And in the middle of it, Aerith who had done her homework - and then some. A somewhat desperate chuckle escaped the blonde boy's lips, which he quickly tried to smother. She would save the world, he thought. She'd do it.

After hurriedly putting the magazines away and making a mental note to get copies somewhere, Cloud stumbled out of the library and out to the street. Junon smelled of smoke and Mako and fresh metal - the people walked along it's streets like nothing out of ordinary was going on. Cloud stared at them for a long while, feeling horrible urge to laugh at it all until his throat would dry and he wouldn't get a single sound through.

The SOLDIER program as whole had been declared insane. Sephiroth for all his magnificence would probably never be trusted with the position of true power. Wutai War had stalled because the President was uncertain about the strength of his military. And Aerith would save the Planet and there was probably not a damn thing anyone could do to stop her.

"It's about time," Cloud said, and laughed.

xx

I love Aerith. I really do. Writing her, ahem, effects on other people is such fun.

Merry x-mas :D


	8. VII, to watch one's reactions

Warnings; Majorly AU, with ooc Cloud, characters' deaths and violence. Eventually slash. Written with only second-hand knowledge about Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core and whatnot, so expect canonical mistakes all over the place.

**GUARD  
**_to keep under control or restraint as a matter of caution or prudence; to guard one's reactions  
_**VII chapter**

Chronic schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Cloud tapped the side of the book while thinking about them, trying to decide which one to go with. He was trying to write an essay for his psychology class - a simple thing where he was supposed to select one of the most common mental disorders and then detail the history, the known symptoms and treatment. Nothing really that good or useful, but something to "kick start the right way of thinking" as the professor teaching the class had said.

Which one to go with? Well, sure, he could've gone with any number of mental disorders - hell, he was so intimately familiar with simple depression or something as mundane as inferiority complex that he could've written a whole series of books about it. Or dependant personality disorder or dissocialise identity disorder or…

He had had way, way too many brushes with insanity along the years. His university books had horrible habit of making him realise that. Hell, he had one mother case of PTSD too. He just hadn't realised it at the time.

Sighing to himself, Cloud leaned back on his bed and dropped the open book onto his face, to block out the world. If he hadn't known any better, he would've thought that Aerith had asked him to study psychology just so that he'd be knocked down a few pegs. Or few hundred. All he had to do was to read a single chapter of his books and he found himself wishing that the ground would eat him. Maybe that was a disorder of some sort too - there seemed to be nearly endless amount of them.

Closing his eyes and breathing in the smell of the book - which had became fairly familiar to him in the last few months after he had became the youngest person to attend to Junon university - Cloud let his thoughts stray. Aside from the sand pit of self-respect that was psychology, he was rather enjoying himself in the university. Unlike back in primary school or high school, here he actually had something that could almost be called peers. Most of the other students were adults or almost, so the childishness - or worse yet, the forced maturity of "I'm grown up and so I will make some of very bad decisions now" - of his former classmates was blessedly missing. As was, he had been happy to find, any even slightest smidge of bullying.

Maybe getting hung on that was yet another disorder, but really, that was probably his biggest relief. All his life he had looked back to his childhood and teenage years and that had been the first thing he had remembered. Especially with the debacle that had been his attempt of becoming a SOLDIER. It wasn't like that at all in the university. Maybe there was some strutting about in the physical lessons and in the extra sword training and such, and yeah, there was always one asshole in the gym, but in the classes? No one had the time for stuff like that - everyone was too busy trying to learn and make something out of themselves to care one jot about anyone else. Even being the little kid in class of nearly-adults didn't change that.

Most of all, aside from couple of jerks, no one looked down at Cloud or sneered at him - and he wasn't treated like a kid. No, everyone treated him like he was already adult just like them, just slightly on the shorter side. Sure, there was some joking about, but nothing too bad and that was usually about him being a supposed prodigy while also being a supposed bodybuilder - and blond to boot. Aside from that, he was like another adult in company of adults.

Planet only knew how much he had missed that.

If Cloud would've had to stay in the university until he had a degree on something, he doubted he would've really minded. He looked forward to the time when Aerith Faremis would _get interested in him_, of course, but Junon University wasn't bad at all. He hadn't really thought so, but thanks to the fact that he had long ago taught himself out of the concept of procrastination, he rather liked studying. And more than that, he liked the idea of becoming something more than he had been last time around - as much as he enjoyed the sword and the fight, there was allure in something else, something new.

In the future he had never really been known for his brilliant intellect, after all, and people had had the unconscious assumption that his physical strength had made him somehow slower mentally. True, there had been a time when that had been sort of right, but it had came and went - while the assumption had remained. That had been a bit irritating at times, even if no one had ever dared to say it to his face.

Sighing, Cloud lifted the book form his face and eyed the chapter title. Which one to write about - which one was more pressing? Chronic schizophrenia or post-traumatic stress disorder? It was pity he didn't have any access to whatever secret studies in ShinRa had determined that the SOLDIER program was, in word, insane. If he had known, he would've gone with the one more popular among the SOLDIERs and that would've been that.

It still blew his mind. Sure, he had always known that Soldiers, well, not all of them were all there. Sephiroth being the bright shining prime example, though Jenova obviously played part there. But still, to have a name for it, to have it actually made sort of official, even if secret… It was like someone had announced that ShinRa was corrupt. It _was_, of course, it had probably already been corrupt when it had been started, but no one had ever came out and just said it like that.

The SOLDIER program was flawed - and, judging by the decisions Aerith had made about Cloud's courses, she intended to do something about it, and he was supposed to help. One prodigy to another.

Sometimes he really had to wonder if he was having a weird dream. That was probably a disorder too.

"Oh for Planet's sake," the blond sighed, throwing the book down and sitting up. He'd drive himself mental if he kept this up and the essay wouldn't get written just by bemoaning about it. He needed some fresh air - maybe it would clear his head. Figuring he might as well make it somewhat productive, he decided to go for a jog.

After changing into his jogging clothing and stretching himself limber, Cloud begun making the usual route up the endless staircases to towards the viewing platform. As he made his way up, passing by the now familiar buildings and shops, he wondered what Vincent was doing. The task of trying to keep track of Rufus Shinra had turned into a fulltime job of keeping eye of Junon as whole, and the former Turk was only a hair width's away from becoming a _current_ Turk. Cloud certainly didn't mind - it was good on Vincent, obviously - but he rather missed the times when he had been able to show up at the man's cottage at odd hours and find intelligent conversation when ever he wanted.

Pushing the thought aside and letting his mind empty, Cloud jogged up and up until he came to the terrace of the viewing platform. Shaking his limbs slightly and stretching his arms, he made his way towards the baluster. It was getting late - in hour or so, the sun would set.

Junon really had magnificent sunsets. Sunrises, not so much.

As he lifted his ankle onto the stone baluster so that he could stretch his legs properly, he allowed his mind return to the essay. It didn't really matter which one he would write the essay about, in the end he would study both subjects and more in full detail. And it wasn't like he was trying to become a psychiatrist or psychologist, in any case. He had no idea what he was trying to become, but there was entirely too many military subjects on his schedule for Aerith to want him to become a fellow scientist. If anything she seemed to want to make him into a military officer.

After stretching properly, Cloud stepped closer to the baluster and just watched the horizon for a long moment. It had been almost four months now. Four months of studying and sending letters and text messages back home - and some pictures, after he had gotten a camera. How much longer would it take for Aerith to contact him?

Thinking about it, he didn't notice the man nearly appearing beside him before he was already there - and not just there, but standing on the baluster some feet away from Cloud. Blinking, the blond glanced to his side and then up to the man, raising his eyebrows. Yes, he was seeing it, alright - there was red haired man standing on the stone baluster.

"If you want to kill yourself, I'd suggest doing it on either one of the city sides," he said, leaning forward a little and trying to get a better look at the man's face. "Jumping from here you'll get a bruised ass at the most."

The man started slightly at that, and turned to look down at him. "Are you talking at me, little boy?" he asked, sounding both curious and somehow affronted at the same time.

"You're the insane person standing on a baluster," Cloud noted, frowning slightly. The man looked… familiar. Had he seen the man somewhere? The university maybe? No, he was sure he'd remember more then - that was the type of hair colour you just didn't forget. "Do I know you?" he asked.

"I'm sure you don't," the redhead said, sighing and turning to look at the horizon. "Nobody does. _Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul, pride is lost…_"

Cloud lifted a single eyebrow at that. "If you say so," he answered, shaking his head. So, running away from psychology he ran into a crazy person. Of course. "Nobody really knows anybody," he said thoughtfully. "I think that's one of the best things about life."

The redhead gave a pause at that. "How so?" he asked. "Would you not, like all on this world, wish to be known and understood?"

"Understood sure, but known?" Cloud shrugged, turning away from the sunset and instead leaning his back against the baluster. "Understanding implies sympathy and acceptance and the concept of being… forgiven for little things that make people ugly or bothersome. But to _know_ is to discern all the mistakes and the flaws, the wrong doings and sins, and whatever else people have. No analysis, no theories, just one big hard fact."

Shaking his head, Cloud glanced at the man. "I'd like to be understood, sure. But I seriously wish no one will ever… _know_ me."

The red haired man looked at him strangely for a moment, before turning and jumping down from the baluster, and to stand beside him. "That's an interesting way of looking at things," he noted. "To be sympathetically understood rather than factually known, yes, I see the difference…" he trailed away, and for a moment Cloud seriously wondered if he was going to strike a theatrical pose to go with the dramatic way he spoke. Instead the man shook his head. "But I think your knowing and my knowing are whole different things."

"Maybe," Cloud snorted. If the man knew the things Cloud had done he would've wished never to be known either. "So, why were you standing on a baluster?" he asked. "It's a nice view, but I think you can see it just as well from behind the thing."

The redhead snorted softly, glancing at the ocean over his shoulder. "I was wondering what it would be like, to become an ocean wave," he answered. "Maybe my life would have more meaning then. Or perhaps less - that would be improvement too."

"Your life must really suck, then," the boy said somewhat sympathetically.

The man sighed without answering and then turned to him. "Isn't this a bit late for little children to be out?"

Cloud sighed. And they had been getting along so well. "Fine, fine," he said, pushing away from the baluster and stretching his legs a little to get ready to return home. "Just, advice to you. Killing yourself might get you out of bind but in the end it won't really make that big of a difference - all you're left with eternity to wonder if you could've changed things when you were still alive. So, I'd would suggest trying to get your head on straight before you go. And if you can't, get some help - asking can't hurt a much as regretting it later and feeling like an idiot."

With a wave of his hand he headed away, leaving no doubt a very confused man staring behind him. He didn't care, though - he now had an idea how to write his essay.

x

Few days later he figured out why Aerith hadn't contacted him, and then felt like kicking himself for not really realising it himself earlier, especially when Tseng had specifically told him what they had planned. But no, he hadn't, and in the end Aerith pretty much had to tell him to "Stop dilly dallying and make some noise." Or, in other words, "Show off like you've never shown off before."

Of course Aerith couldn't contact him as one genius to another when the Aerith she was playing probably hadn't ever heard of Cloud whom he was playing. Though Cloud was admitted into the university early, he hadn't really done anything special since entering, except maybe attending to his classes and managing to keep up despite the fact that he was half a dozen years younger than his peers. It wasn't enough for the prodigy Aerith Faremis to become interested in Cloud Strife, the prodigy.

"Show off," he murmured. He was both very good and very bad at that. Ever since Sephiroth he had became the master of accidental showing off - but intentionally he could rarely do it right. He either came out as a idiot or, more often than not, he did all in his power to not to do it. The best he had managed in this lifetime was showing off at the gym, and that was because he had still been a bit high on the whole concept of changing futures and such.

And this was much worse and much more damaging that because he had to show off as a genius - he had to not just live up to his reputation, but he had to make it. And he had to make it _big - _enough so for the word of it to reach Midgar. Despite all the things that happened in the last years, despite the things he had done and seen and whatnot, he wasn't actually a genius, nor had he ever been. At best he had been decent at some things and slightly above average in others - the only thing he had truly excelled as the best in the world had been physical prowess and that had been because of Hojo's meddling for the most part. Well, there was also chocobos, but that didn't really work with this.

But he had to admit, he had bit of an advantage. He knew the future - and not just future, but he knew several things from the future. Such as mechanics and some engineering. Of course, trying to recreate any of that in this time wouldn't be at all easy task - it wasn't like he could get the parts and whatnot, if he wanted to do something like reinventing the gasoline using combustion engines that had came after the age of Mako had ended, he would have to build them mostly from scratch. There were other things too - what little he knew about electronics, such as reprogramming and adding a little chip into a PHS, was advanced in this time's standards.

But if he started on that path, it would be hard to continue. If he got the reputation of being good with electronics, he would have to continue it, and he didn't think he could, they just weren't his thing. Engines he could do, maybe, but it would probably take too long - months if not longer. Making the parts or ordering them and commissioning them, that took time, time which he didn't want to waste.

Which left either his physical abilities or his blacksmith abilities. And he rather doubted that being good with sword and having somewhat ruthless training schedule would impress anyone in the circles Aerith most likely wanted him to be known at.

"I guess I'll be making my swords sooner, rather than later then," Cloud mused.

That would be both easier than anything else - and most likely harder. Easier, because swords making didn't take really that long, and currently the technology behind swords wasn't anywhere near as advanced as it had been when Cloud had been going through a good selection of weapons while hunting Sephiroth - not to mention about what it had been like when he had hit three digits in accumulative years. And yet going with weapon making also harder choice because the materials of those times were most likely not available yet.

Still, it seemed like the best choice of the lot, so he decided to at least try and see what kind of materials there were available. Thanks to the fact that he was already ankle deep in the engineering courses at the university, he had after-school access to the works shops and forgeries, so he had access to all the tools he would probably need. The right sort of metal would be harder to get - not to mention about the fact that he needed to figure out what he could make and what he needed to make.

It would have to be a pretty goddamn epic sword, to be able to make his supposed genius known.

Carefully avoiding thinking of his fusion sword as he didn't want to transform - although if he _could_ remake that, then that would definitely make him known as _genius_ - Cloud started researching. He knew already that whichever way he would go about it, it would be the Materia slots that would have the most intellectual weight, not the actual design - even if he would create a fusion sword that would be a pure marvel of sword technology, no one would care much if you couldn't add Materia to it.

The greatest number of slots people currently could add to a weapon was seven - but people rarely used weapons with more than five. Currently after five slots the conductive metal got a little over taxed, and the Materia would get no growth what so ever. Six slotted weapons famously had zero Materia growth. The people who used weapons with more than five slots were usually the elite among elite, who had Mastered all their important Materia previously on other weapons. As far as slots went otherwise, seven was the current limit not only because the strain preventing Materia growth, but also because all attempts of making eight slotted weapon so far had ended up in accident varying from weapon melting in the user's hands, or just blowing up.

So, that would be what he needed to do. More than five slotted weapon that allowed Materia growth? Nothing new to him - he had seen twenty slotted weapons in the future with perfect Materia growth that didn't as much as twitch when all Materia were used. Those weapons had the benefit of alloys that wouldn't be invented in fifty or more years, though, and since he was not specialist in creating things like that, he rather doubted he'd be able to do _that_.

A weapon with nine, ten slots and Materia growth, though? Cloud smiled to himself, brushing his fingers over his chin. That he just might be able to do.

x

Planning the weapon took in the end less time, than trying to get the material. The type of metal you needed to make a ten slotted sword wasn't exactly rare at the moment or impossibly to get, but it was a bit hard for a thirteen year old university student to get his hands on ShinRa's weapon grade Makostiel - the sort metal the inside of the Sister Ray's barrel was made of. It was also used for just about all weapon barrels of guns that shot beams of concentrated magic rather than gunpowder powered projectiles, and it wasn't really a company secret - but try and get enough of it to make a sword and you run into a bit of a funding problem.

Vincent, who had taken interest in the project after Cloud had explained it to him, suggested that he should ask funding from the university. The students often got some funds for their projects if they were good enough, Cloud knew as much - the laboratories for one ran with some nice amount of donations and whatnot.

"Yeah, I rather doubt that would work. I need hundred thousand gil's worth of metal - and I doubt just a sword project would get that type of money," Cloud sighed, leaning back against Vincent's couch. He had no idea why, but for some reason Vincent tended to have the best couches ever. "And I kind of want to keep the swords afterwards."

"Does it have to be Makostiel?" the gunman asked thoughtfully.

"Well, no, but Makostiel is currently the only existing metal that would work," Cloud answered, shaking his head. "At times like this I really miss Cid," he murmured, thinking back. The somewhat embarrassingly named Sheralite had made some excellent gunmetal, even if Cid had invented for his precious airships. Cloud had made Denzel's and Marlene's first weapons from the stuff, and the staff and the throwing knives had lasted long enough for their grandchildren to use them.

"Cid?" Vincent asked, blinking slowly at him.

"Cid Highwind - the pilot, you know. I've told you about him," Cloud waved a hand at him. "Can curse up a storm and will make the most beautiful airships this world will probably ever see. Also landed man onto the moon, but that's kind of irrelevant. Some year, two after we stopped the meteor, he came up with this amazing metal for his engines, it could conduct magic like nobody's business."

"Cid Highwind," Vincent said slowly. "The owner and pilot of the airship _Highwind_. Yes, I believe he will be coming to Junon soon."

Cloud blinked slowly and turned to look at him. "You're kidding me," he said. "When, where? How do you know?"

"I have been monitoring the happenings of this city for a while now, especially the business of ShinRa and it's army," the gunman answered. "They are intending to have a large shipment of goods manufactured here taken to Wutai - the _Highwind_, I believe, was commissioned to transport the cargo."

Cloud sat up a little straighter, before relaxing again. "Well, that won't do me much good, will it?" he asked frowning. "If that's just it, then the _Highwind_ come and go, probably only docking only for an hour, and if I know Cid, he probably won't set a single foot onto the city itself."

"Perhaps. Will you let that stop you from trying?" the former Turk asked, lifting a single eyebrow at Cloud.

The boy frowned - and then grinned. "No way," he said, and jumped up. "When is the _Highwind_ coming, how long will it be here?"

"I am not entirely sure, but I will inform you when I know," Vincent promised. "I do believe that there will be at least some days until that time."

"Excellent. That will give me enough time to do some research and write a… suitably crude letter," Cloud mused and smiled, thinking back to the time when he and Cid had spent months and months bouncing back ideas from each other, while Cloud had been making Fenrir and Cid had been making the first _Shera_. Somewhere along the way, Cloud had gotten almost as crude about his missives as Cid had been - it had been probably the most fun Cloud had ever had, writing letters.

This letter would have to be especially convincing, if he really wanted to get the mechanic's help. Cid was a genius, but he was also a bit of a recluse when it came to his work - which was why he had retreated to such a remote town in the western continent, rather than working in the east where everything was close by. At this point Cid's space program was still going strong, not having yet been crashed as magnificently as it had been - so the man was no doubt busy and probably getting daily requests from plucky young men eager to become famous engineers.

While heading back to the dorms, Cloud hummed with anticipation. He had an advantage those plucky young men didn't, though. Good fifty years of companionship, cursing and oil stains all the way up to his neck. Plus, he was relatively certain he remembered what Cid's favourite whiskey was.

His sword project was definitely starting to look up.

x

After he wrote the letter - which, along with having his credentials and such, ended up coming from the heart rather literally, with Cloud enthusing about the sword design maybe a bit too much as well as more or less bitching over the fact that Makostiel was so damned hard to get in large quantities before going on some length about how much ShinRa's engineering sucked and whatnot - Vincent did him the favour of delivering it. It and the bottle it had been slapped on. Cloud didn't know how he did it, but as the Highwind came and went and Vincent informed him that the letter had been delivered, the boy believed the gunman readily.

As he waited for possible answer - or no answer - Cloud was rather glad that he had the university to keep him busy. He now paid a little more attention in the engineering classes and asked some random questions about Materia slotted weapons and whatnot, so that once he would start working on the thing it wouldn't seem like it was coming out of nowhere. Aside from that, though, the hardest lessons for him still remained the psychology lessons. He even handled the medical studies and learning how to stick needles into people much better, and he was pretty sure he had some phobia about needles.

When the letter finally came about a week later, it was Cid all over. The man sneered at his attempt of bribery, called him variety of names, each one more impolite than the one before it - before gleefully pointing out the flaws in his way of thinking, and why this and that wouldn't work and how the man would just like to see him try that, if not for any other reason than to see him blow up. There was some hint of approval there, in the words "Go ahead, make my day," even if they were followed by "I'll see you in the obituaries." The best thing came in the end, though - in the note that Cid would be sending Cloud some "shit" later, just to see what his puny little mind would think of that.

What came in the mail wasn't exactly Sheralite. It was more like Sheralite-Beta, a bit crude and bit rough, and there was a slight stutter in the conductivity, but it definitely better than anything else Cloud could get his hands on anytime soon. It would be a little softer than current sword metals and would probably chip easier than he would've liked and yeah, he wouldn't be making any dozen-slots of the future, which you could make with proper Sheralite. But a nine-slot… definitely. And it would most certainly have Materia growth too.

"Bring it on, asshole," he send back to Cid, after having taken a couple of days testing the stuff against what Materia he had and being fairly satisfied with the results. "Send me more and once I'll make the best goddamned sword ever made, you can suck on it and weep."

Cid did send him more - they needed two men to carry the long box to Cloud's dorm, after which the two tired postmen were so curious about the contents that Cloud had to open the thing in front of their eyes. It had inside it four long slabs of Sheralite-Beta - which probably wasn't named Sheralite-Beta - along with a note. "Choke on these, brat."

The postmen were probably pretty confused why Cloud grinned as if his birthday had came early, but he didn't much care. He had twice as much metal as he needed - and Cid had even done him the favour of shaping the material into neat slaps ready for cutting. It _was_ his birthday coming early. Good five of them stacked together.

Having the materials and the plans ready, Cloud approached his engineering professor with the project. The man was more than a little suspicious, in turn lifting his eyebrows his and frowning at Cloud as he explained the whole thing - or as much of the whole thing as he could. "Well, if you have the material ready and free of charge, I can't stop you. You won't be the first over-eager student to try, though - even now we have couple potential gunsmiths working at the workshop," the man said. "Just as long as you follow the rules, you can have a crack at it."

The rules mostly involved caution and care and never ever testing anything magic conductive with actual Materia. Cloud promised to follow the orders readily - with no intention of keeping that promise. How the man though anyone could design a Materia slotted weapon without testing it while working, he didn't even want to know, but so as long as the man wouldn't get on his case too much and he could do his tests in secret… he didn't care.

And so, as the winter hit the broadside of Junon full on with gusts of icy wind and rain, he begun working. For the most part the work wasn't as much working as it was getting ready for the actual work. With Materia slotted weapon the placement of the slots was everything and that took most of the time. Majority of sword makers put their slots near the handle or right into it, as that was where they would be safest from harm and unlikely to get cracked by another sword. It was good enough for two or three slotted weapon - but if you tried to put more than that too near the handle, the sword would imbalance too much - both physically and magically - which was the major problem with such things. More often than not they ended up making the tang over heat, sometimes causing the hilt to catch in flames at odd times.

Nine slots, though, they had evenly put thorough the blade, rather than to the cluster near to the base. Knowing exactly where to put them was a different thing though. One millimetre to the wrong direction and the blade might just as well snap in half for no good reason - or catch flames or melt or blow up. There was whole variety of risks with weapons making, and precision was one of the most important things the maker needed.

But good knowledge about Materia certainly helped. And there was not a single type of Materia Cloud hadn't used. Except for Holy and Meteor but those were special sort of Materia.

In the end, he did end up modelling his new sword somewhat after the six bladed beauty he had made out of the ULTIMA sword. Though this one would be only two piece sword, it would have a double edged main blade like his future one had, which would be the one with the Materia slots. Like the main blade of his future fusion sword, this one would also be hollowed out and mechanical, with the Materia slots inside and hidden when the blade was pulled shut. The other sword would be a hollow blade that would, when fitted against the main blade, turn the assembly into smaller, lighter version of the Buster Sword design.

It wouldn't be perfect - if he would ever get to using it as hard as he usually used swords… well he gave it only two, three years before he would need to get a new weapon. The metal was just too frail for good durability, having yet to reach the hardness of the actual Sheralite metal. In the end the sword would last longer as a Materia user's weapon, than it would as an actual sword.

But for now it would be more than enough.

When Cloud wanted to test the finished sword, there was some mixed reactions. On one hand everyone wanted to see it - see either the creation of a new era of sword making, or the spectacular fail of yet another fool who had been trying to reach too high. But on other hand, Cloud was the promising young genius that Junon liked to have on it's lists and the professors were rather reluctant to see him blow himself up. They talked about it back and forth for a while - even suggesting that they would get someone else to test the sword - and die in the attempt - rather than risking it's actual maker.

"I think its my business if I blow myself up or not. I just want someone there to witness whichever way it goes," Cloud said to them in the end, getting a bit irritated. He knew the sword would work, and he knew it wouldn't explode in his hands - he had already tested it, after all. "I can go by myself too, if it gets to that."

In the end, three professors and the whole skeleton crew of the work shop - that is to say, the gun nuts who spent their free time at the workshop, trying to reinvent the wheel - ended joining him in the testing rage outside Junon, where people from the university tested everything from swords to guns to explosives and on occasion some more lethal potions. Cloud knew without needing to look that Vincent was somewhere there too, probably hiding in the bushes, but he made no mention of it, instead concentrating onto the testing range instead. The place looked like war had gone through it couple of times, but Cloud was happy to see that there were some fresh practice dummies for him to destroy.

Which he did - with great pleasure. He had always been more of the materia-sword user than anything else, and to feel a blade alive with the power of the magic was… delightful. This new, pathetic sword vibrated a bit too much and yes, there was slight warmth in the sword after he had gone through the spells in rapid succession, but it felt more right in his hands, than anything had since his arrival in the past. As good as the short sword Vincent had got for him was, this was better. Not perfect, but definitely better.

It was also, as far as this time went, a marvel of weapon engineering. After Cloud and his shell shocked witnesses had headed back to Junon, Cloud soon got the summons for another testing in two days time - where there would be a jury to see his performance along with some specialists and whatnot. Grinning Cloud answered the summons, mentally rubbing his hands together with glee.

It was time to show off.

x

The "official" testing site of the university wasn't really that as much as it was a stage. It was where the university students presented their final exams and where the university itself sometimes showed off this or that thing it's laboratories had managed to produce. There was a platform where Cloud was supposed to present the blade and then there was a great big auditorium for people to sit in and stare.

It was a good thing Cloud had grown out of stage fever decades ago. When he entered the stage with the sword casually hoisted onto his shoulder, he was met with stone dead silence, only punctuated some mutters and faint sniggers in the back. The place was packed, not just with the specialists and what not, but whole lot of the students had came to see as well, and as Cloud stepped up there was a flash of a camera going off.

"Ladies, gentlemen," the engineering professor spoke, directing his voice mostly to the jury. "I present to you Cloud Stride, with his Nine-slotted sword project. Thorough the last month or so, he has been working under my department in order to break through the limits of our current sword making technology to create something new - he will be presenting the sword to you now."

As the man stepped down from the stage while motioning Cloud to go ahead, the blonde eyed the blank faced jury for a moment. They looked like hard-boiled lot, probably wouldn't be easy to impress them. Well, that was fine with him - he didn't want them to be impressed. He wanted them to report the truth - as they saw it, anyway.

With a smile, he swung the sword down from his shoulder, still eying the audience. Before doing anything else, he aimed the sword at them and cast a Barrier between the stage and the people watching, and only then turned to the nine target dummies presented to him. After judging the distance, he took a step forward and swung the weapon heavily, sending a wave of Fire at the dummies, making them all catch flame. Upper cut, and a roar of Ice followed, encasing the targets in frost, swing, and then crackle of a Bolt that nearly blew the targets up.

He finished the show by swinging the sword up sharply - and completely decimating whatever there was left of the targets with a Demi.

Four spells in span of about twenty seconds - five, if you included the Barrier he had started with. Not bad for a presentation.

"That's about it," he said while the audience stared silently, some having half way gotten away from their seats with what looked like near panic in their faces at the sight of the devastation he had wrought. The barrier had however protected from whatever splinters otherwise would've been launched at them. The jury, Cloud was happy to see, was also a little shocked.

With a grin at them, Cloud swung the weapon down, and then clipped the hollow side blade off. "This sword is a two piece fusion sword. It consist ninety two percent of the experimental CS-01 steel made by Cid Highwind of Rocket town, two percent of Makostiel and rest various cocktails of other metals that I used to enforce the blade's edges for some extra durability - the handle is wrought with your ordinary cow hide, nothing unusual."

With flourish, he stuck the hollow blade to the floor beside him, before opening the mechanism of the main blade. "The blade has two part mechanism in it. The most important one the opening and closing mechanism. Inside the blade is partially hollow, as seen here. The Materia is slotted in grid of CS-01 with some Makostiel to enhance the conductivity. Nine slots – four pairs linked slots, and one individual one. All of them fully functional," he added, popping one of the Materia balls off, grateful that the university had been kind enough to loan him some for the demonstration.

"You only used five spells," someone in the audience pointed out.

"Five spells, yes - four of which hit multiple targets. The Fire, Ice, Lightning and Gravity Materia are all linked with All Materia," Cloud pointed out with a grin. The fact that he had managed to link more than three pairs was also a bit revolutionary, but that wasn't the point, not really. Letting his grin fade to a smile, he shook his head and turned to the jury. "The other mechanism of the blade is the mechanism of the second blade, which links the two swords seamlessly together into the form you saw previously. The second blade is hollow and has no Materia slots, but the Materia of the main blade work just as well with or without the second blade."

"Why two blades?" one of the jury asked.

"I like it better when I have options," Cloud shrugged. "This way I have three swords in one. It's simple as that."

"So, the sword wasn't commissioned? And you don't intend to sell it?"

Cloud shook his head at that. "No, I made it for myself and I'm the one who's going to use it. I made it perfectly fit for my body type, so it might not even work as well for anyone else." In some years, it wouldn't fit him either - the blade was too short, too thin, too light. But that was the problem of some future day.

"Let's talk more about the Materia slots," one spectacled man from the jury said slowly, leaning a little forward. "You said you used a… grid for the Materia slots. Even at this distance I can see that is true - the Materia aren't fitted into complete slots, but rather into frames. Could you explain that in further detail, what made you go with this sort of design?"

Cloud did explain it in great and long and boring detail of numbers and measurements - and somewhere along the way, accidentally rewrote whole concept of the Materia-slotting. As the bespectacled man drilled him for the science and the measurements, Cloud realised that he had forgotten that the concept of Materia not needing to be completely encased in metal to be _equipped_ wouldn't be invented for another five to ten years. It was too late now, though - the idea was out there, and Cloud had been the first to say it out loud.

Well, he thought couple of days later when a picture of him swinging the sword and raining lighting at the off-frame targets somehow had ended up in the cover of _Junon Flash_, the local science journal. The article itself was fairly short, and they had gotten over half of his sword's specks wrong but whatever photographer had strayed into the audience had gotten some nice pictures, definitely. And he was a bit miffed that they had came up with a name for his sword even when he had specifically said that it didn't need one.

"It's _my sword_, and that's all the definition it will ever need," he had said when someone in the audience had asked. His old six piece fusion sword hadn't had a name either, it hadn't needed one because it had been Cloud Strife's sword and that's it.

The article, on other hand, had decided that it's name was Strife's Edge. Odd irony there - except Cloud definitely did not care for it. And the fact that it rhymed with sewerage did not help.

But he accomplished what he had set out to accomplish. The article was noisy and flashy and would probably give him more trouble than it was worth. But he had wanted to show off and he had definitely succeeded at that. With a grin, he penned a note to Cid and text message to Aerith, saying pretty much the same to both of them. "How's that?" before settling down to wait for the reaction whatever it might be.

He had a feeling he wouldn't have to wait for long.

xx

Sorry about the swordiness of this chapter. And only belatedly did I remember that "All" Materia could only be found in nature, and not any of the shops. Oops. Too lazy think of a way to properly correct it so let's say that Junon university has access to all the best stuff, and leave it at that.

I am currently playing my way through Crisis Core and familiarising myself with Dirge of Cerberus through a let's-play. So, Crisis Core stuff will be added in after all, possibly even with something like understanding and detail. Plus some of the plot, tough changed around because the changes Aerith and Tseng and Reeve have made to the time like, so that's a thing. Dirge of Cerberus... nooot so much.

Still slash, though the pairing is under review

edit: I know Cloud's six piece fusion sword is often called the First Tsurugi. However, I read somewhere some while ago that the name was taken from a development sketch which was just pointing out the pieces - tsurugi means sword and the "first tsurugi" bit was just pointing at the innermost sword or the _first sword_ of the six. The sword doesn't actually have an official name, so that's what I am going with because I like the idea that Cloud sword doesn't have a name - because it's a part of him and doesn't need a name any more than his arm or leg needs a name.

My apologies for possible grammar errors.


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